Vibrant Downtown Living

On Saturday at 2:00pm, on a clear sunny afternoon, I drove down Hamilton Street. Between 10th and 7th Streets there were only four people.  Two of them were not a asset to center city, under any criteria.  The other two were almost at 7th, and carrying bags.  I suspect they may have been shopping at Villa, on 8th and Hamilton.  Although downtown apologists and cheerleaders will say that my report isn't true, unfortunately, it is all too true...especially on Saturdays.

J. B. Reilly's financially attainable apartments in the former Holiday Inn are just the beginning of his entry into the prevailing rental market.  There is no way that he will even attempt for the Strata rents in his new apartments on S. 8th Street, when they are completed.  Although he and the Morning Call refer to center city as vibrant, it is in fact a dead zone.  The paper and cheerleaders on local social media have bragged that these new apartment units are being financed without the NIZ. Actually, the NIZ was never to include residential. Offices and stores on the first floor of these residential buildings does allow Reilly to tap some NIZ benefits. Furthermore, there is no scrutiny of the prorations by the ANIZDA board.  Adrian Shanker,  head of the local gay and lesbian organization, is a recent appointee to the board. He managed to see that the guidelines were changed to include gays with other minority contractors,  that should be hired by the developers.*

When Reilly is done building his new attainable rate apartments,  Allentown may become worse than it is now.  Allentown's problem isn't a lack of affordable housing, but rather a surplus of it. In that sense, Reilly is only contributing to the problem. Likewise, so are the new units in former converted factories.

* I'm not a fan of rewarding contracts based on minority ownership of any kind.  The practice is not merit based, and has been exploited. While this blog does not adhere to political correctness standards, Shanker has introduced some new thinking into the Good Old Boy Club called ANIZDA.  More on that in a future post.

reprinted from July of 2019

UPDATE DECEMBER 3, 2020: The above piece was written pre-pandemic, and the empty streets were not because of the virus.

Over time I have mellowed in my criticism of the NIZ.  For better or worse, it is the new Allentown. However,  that attitude shift doesn't mean my scrutiny of the program or its components will cease... For example, the consequences of the aforementioned residential aspect.  

The biggest irony in the Lehigh Valley is the Morning Call...While we still do have a local paper,  it has enabled corruption, deception and misinformation.