Former Coatesville City Manager Jean Krack was officially named Phoenixville borough manager Monday night.

Krack said he was drawn to the job by Phoenixville's robust revitalization. Krack leaves his job as executive director of the Institute for Economic Development of Crozer Keystone Health System in Chester. Prior to that he was Coatesville city manger; he was named to that position in 2004 after then City Manager Paul Janssen resigned amid reports the city had been running a deficit budget. "I am definitely forward to this. Things are happening. Council is together. The downtown is alive and things are moving forward I'm looking forward to being a part of that," said Krack. Krack will begin work July 7.

A special attraction, said Krack, is the number of restaurants dotting the downtown. "Come up here on a Friday night and you will see people out on the streets walking," he said.

When Krack took over as Coatesville's city manager he inherited years of deficit spending and was forced to increase real estate taxes, double the earned income tax and draw down $13 million from the city's Trust Fund.

Shortly after the new council took office in 2006, Krack was forced to resign. The new council attempted but failed to reopen the budget to reduce the tax increase. The city's 2007 and 2008 budgets proposed by now City Manger Harry Walker and approved by council left those tax increases in place.

Since Krack's departure the city's revitalization, once touted as an $800 million investment, has stagnated. A key component was a series of restaurants dotting a riverwalk along the Brandywine Creek that eventually would extend to Hibernia Park.