PhillyDeals: 58 groups score Pa. matching grants

Just in time for Christmas,

Gov. Corbett's

administration posted the names of 58 developers, industrial plants, corporate and nonprofit hospitals, museums, private colleges, and other institutions that will share $133 million in state matching grants for favored projects across the commonwealth.

It's the latest installment of the Redevelopment Authority Capital Program grants, a program that has been popular with lawmakers and developers since the 1980s, defended by local construction interests, and denounced from the left and the right as corporate welfare.

The latest Philadelphia giveaways include:

$5 million for the new catalytic cracker at Carlyle Group's Philadelphia Energy Solutions at the expanded former Sunoco-Gulf-Arco works on the Schuylkill. Corbett's office says it is part of a previously announced $30 million taxpayer aid package.

$2 million for developer Dennis Maloomian's Realen Broad Street Partners L.P.'s long-projected Aloft hotel on North Broad Street, near the underused Convention Center.

$1.75 million for Atlantic City Linen Supply's proposed state-of-the-art Philadelphia plant.

$4 million for expansion at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

$3 million for for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp.'s St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.

$3 million for St. Christopher's nonprofit rival, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Ambulatory Care Center.

$2.8 million for campus and community improvements at

St. Joseph's University.

$2 million for Prince Music Theater.

$1.5 million for Philadelphia Zoo's Big Cat Falls trailway system.

$1.5 million for the Temple Heart and Vascular Center.

$750,000 for Lutheran Theological Seminary's campus economic development initiative.

$1.8 million for the Warminster Community Park Recreation Center.

$2 million for Uptown Worthington, developer Brian O'Neill's East Whiteland Township project, where he plans offices and apartments to join Wegmans and other stores.

$1.5 million for Hankin Group's labs and offices at its Innovation Center at Eagleville - one of the projects competing for life sciences and drug tenants on the U.S. 202 corridor.

$1 million for Carlino East Brandywine L.P.'s East Brandywine Center near West Chester.

$750,000 for a Chester County Historical Society revitalization project.

$1.5 million for Neumann University's Bruder Life Center.

$1.5 million for Academy in Manayunk's recreation and arts center.

Corbett had once campaigned against state giveaways to businesses, which had been expanded under his Democratic predecessor, Ed Rendell.

Corbett spokesman Jay Pagni says the administration

has scaled down and focused the program, which is supposed to pay for "regional economic, cultural, civic, and historical improvement projects."

Corbett's crew selects winners on "a metric-based scoring system of certain criteria: number of jobs

created or retained; economic or cultural impact; strategic clusters [biotech, energy, financial, farm, health care, and other industries];

financial impact, and shovel readiness."

Do these projects benefit you, the taxpayer?