Memories of Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker are fading at the 2,000-acre former PTL Ministries site in York County. Their plan of a Christian community is giving way to homes, commercial development and a small religious campus.
"We're very happy," says Mike Sexton, president of the Regent Park Community Owners' Association. "We're forgetting some things that happened in the past."
Some of those things include the 1987 collapse of PTL that eventually resulted in televangelist Jim Bakker's conviction for fraud. Buildings at the Christian retreat suffered from neglect and others weren't completed.
Regent Park was the first large-scale development to emerge from the collapse of the Bakkers' plans. Malayan United Industries, which bought the Bakkers' holdings out of bankruptcy in 1990, developed about 1,000 acres into a subdivision and golf course. Regent Park has largely been developed, but the other half of the former PTL property has left some residents concerned about what would come next.
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