Allentown’s Arena Document Forecasts Expansive Development Downtown

The PPL Building (seen here in the distance) is the tallest building in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Allentown‘s hockey arena will not open until 2014, but when it does it will help spur almost runaway development in a downtown that has been ravaged by three decades of decay, according to bond documents filed Friday.

The 354-page statement for investors interesting in buying $234 million paints a rosy future in which the next 12 years will bring not only the 8,500-seat hockey arena, but more than 1 million square feet of office space, two hotels, retail shops, a convention center, a 12-screen cinema and hundreds of apartments.

All told, the study by CSL International forecasts that Allentown’s unique 127-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone will create 7,500 new jobs and $44 million in annual state and local taxes.

At least that’s the pitch being made to investors who in the coming weeks will be able to buy $235 million worth of revenue bonds to get the complex at Seventh and Hamilton streets started.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-pa-arena-bonds-20120907,0,5416510.story

Allentown Hockey Arena On Track To Rise In Fall With Pennsylvania Steel

English: City of Allentown from east side (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  Two major thumbs up for using anything made in Pennsylvania!!

Steel could begin rising at the site of Allentown’s arena in September.

The Allentown Commercial and Industrial Development Authority signed off Tuesday on a down payment of $666,000 on structural steel from Erie-based Amthor Steel.

Depending on how quickly Vollers Excavating & Construction finishes carving out the base of the 8,500-seat arena, foundation work could begin before the end of the summer and the building’s steel skeleton could start to rise not long after Labor Day, said ACIDA Executive Director Scott Unger.

Vollers, which has been paid $1.5 million to date, must still complete the delicate work of digging out the foundation around the historic Dime Savings and Trust building, which will be integrated into the arena to serve partly as the ticket office, Unger said.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-arena-construction-20120711,0,7140048.story

Big Hopes For Allentown’s Lehigh River Waterfront

City of Allentown from east side (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Drawing comparisons to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, planners released a proposal Wednesday that redrafts Allentown’s derelict Lehigh River waterfront as a destination with restaurants, boat docks and a slew of office space.

In soft pastels, urban design firm EDSA sketched out a re-envisioning of the west bank that would include a traffic circle in front of the Hamilton Street Bridge, the proposed American Parkway Bridge to the north and every feature of an urban planner’s dream in between: bike lanes, multi-use commercial buildings, a riverside road.

The operative word being dream, as some residents pointed out.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-waterfront-neuwiler-brewery-forum-20120404,0,6266844.story

Allentown Hockey Arena Development Grows With $200-Million Office, Hotel Plan

City of Allentown (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Downtown Allentown is in line for an unprecedented $200 million in new development, and as much as $500 million if a 10-year master plan pans out, all made possible by its one-of-a-kind Neighborhood Improvement Zone.

And that doesn’t include the planned $158 million hockey arena.

Developer City Center Investment Corp. won approval Tuesday from the Allentown Commercial Industrial Development Authority for $135 million in Neighborhood Improvement Zone financing, subsidized by the state and local tax revenues of its future tenants.

City Center will supplement that with $45 million in additional private financing and private capital to construct four new buildings arrayed around Allentown’s Center Square, including three new office complexes and a 200-room hotel valued at more than $200 million, said J.B. Reilly, City Center co-owner.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-hockey-arena-development-20120327,0,2828247.story

Allentown’s West End Renovations Begin This Spring

Image via Wikipedia

With all eyes trained on the planned renewal of downtown Allentown, the city’s theater district is taking back a little of the spotlight.

The city announced plans in July for a $3 million face-lift in the West End that will bring brick-lined sidewalks, ornamental streetlights and repainted traffic signals to the art district.

Work on the new streetscape is scheduled to begin at the end of April, Mayor Ed Pawlowski said at a news conference Wednesday at the Civic Theatre. The city will put out bids for a construction company in the coming weeks, he said.

“We have the opportunity to really transform the western gateway into the city,” Pawlowski said, adding it’s the first significant investment to the neighborhood in decades.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-west-end-streetscape-update-20120229,0,4772394.story

Jaindl Jumping Into Allentown’s Waterfront Development

Image via Wikipedia

Jaindl Properties has jumped into the fray of developers looking to cash in on Allentown’s new downtown taxing district.

Jaindl on Tuesday announced plans to develop the 26-acre Lehigh Structural Steel site into what could be offices, shops and town homes along the Lehigh River. The arrival of the banker-turned-developer revived a waterfront plan by Dunn Twiggar Co. that has been dormant for three years.

Under the deal, Jaindl, whose family name has become synonymous in the Valley with Thanksgiving turkey and land development, and Dunn Twiggar will partner to buy the land from Lehigh Structural Street for an undisclosed price.

From there, they plan to devise a new master plan, match it with what city officials have been planning and then use local and state revenues from the city’s new Neighborhood Improvement Zone to build it.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-pa-allentown-lehigh-river-development-20120110,0,2859433.story

First New Businesses Arrive In Arena Zone

Image via Wikipedia

Allentown‘s hockey arena won’t open until at least 2013, but the first of the office employees it is expected to attract have already started to arrive.

More than 70 workers from Lehigh Gas Corp. and West Park Insurance are moving onto Hamilton Street this week, the first trickle of what is projected to be hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of new workers attracted to what city officials hope will become the Lehigh Valley‘s new financial district.

The new companies moved into the Wells Fargo bank building at 702 Hamilton St., the new headquarters for City Center Investment Corp., which was created to develop properties around the proposed hockey arena. A third company, a yet-to-be-named engineering firm, is scheduled to move in early next year.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-arena-center-city-20111221,0,833580.story

Developer Unveils $50 Million Office Complex In Center City Allentown

A developer on Wednesday unveiled detailed plans for a $50 million office complex that would include a 570-space underground parking garage and could attract more than 700 mostly white-collar office workers to downtown Allentown.

One City Center, to be built by J.B. Reilly on a Seventh Street parking lot south of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, is billed as the first phase of a plan that will bring thousands of new workers and hundreds of new upscale homes and apartments into Allentown’s struggling downtown.

City officials hope it will be followed by a parade of development piggy-backing on a 130-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone created to finance the downtown hockey arena.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-arena-reilly-20111214,0,1003801.story

Allentown’s $100 Million Hockey Arena Complex

Image via Wikipedia

When Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski looks down Hamilton Street, he envisions thousands of hockey fans pouring out of a $100 million arena and into a downtown entertainment district of sports bars, restaurants and retail shops.

While it may take imagination to visualize such a scene in Allentown’s struggling downtown now, Pawlowski on Tuesday brought some clarity to how the city plans to get there when he released the first designs for the arena, which alone is projected to draw 500,000 people downtown each year.

The first architectural renderings oshow a glass and steel, two-story entrance at Hamilton and Seventh streets, transitioning into a row of new places to eat, drink and shop extending down the 700 block of Hamilton Street. For Pawlowski, the shiny new arena, on track to open in 2013, is a first step toward a much larger development he’s counting on to create a new Allentown.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-pa-arena-plans-20111101,0,2659391.story?page=1

$80 Million Minor League Hockey Arena Possibly Coming To 7th And Hamilton Streets In Downtown Allentown

Image via Wikipedia

Talk about a major revitalization coup!  Allentown appears to be getting an arena, possibly at 7^th and Hamilton Sts., for a minor league hockey team.  This was reported on Channel 69 News last night as well as being written about in many Pennsylvania newspapers, including the Morning Call.

The possibilities of spin-off businesses from a project this large are tremendous.  Downtown Allentown would certainly benefit from this huge investment.  Personally, since Hess’s closed I do not have a reason to shop downtown anymore.  It would be nice to have a reason to spend time and money in downtown Allentown again.

The arena would have about 10,000 seats and be home ice for the Phantoms, a feeder team for the Flyers.  When not being used for hockey games the facility could host various large events in Allentown, which would bring thousands into the central business district (much like the Sovereign Center in Reading does). 

After the Phantoms were kicked out of the Spectrum, they moved to Glen Falls, NY.  Allentown was chosen as their new home so an arena needs to be constructed to house the team.  This will happen sooner than later.

Additional parking may need to be added as about 4,000 off-street parking spaces are available in center city Allentown.  If the downtown site does not work out, due to logistics, other sites around Allentown are being considered as well.  A new taxing district will be established to fund most of the cost of the arena.

Lehigh County is also hoping for a center city site due to the obstacles associated with developing the riverfront and the time involved to do so.

Hopefully all the stars will align and Allentown (Pennsylvania’s third largest city) can reap a huge economic harvest from this project.