Just when I thought that The Morning Call was through with the Strata Flats infomercials, they doubled down with Life At Strata. Impressive arena, trendy restaurants, and flourishing downtown are the adjectives just from the first two sentences. They profile three tenants; Young professionals who moved from Austin to teach at Muhlenberg, a full time arena director, and an older empty nester couple. The article is a hoot. The happy campers mention the name of their favorite restaurants, some of which have been open now for three whole weeks. Traditions, gotta love traditions. It's good that they love these restaurants, because it's a long way to Wegman's to go grocery shopping. If the reporters writing these articles are offended by my criticism, perhaps they should consider the other 60,000 tenants living downtown, it's called, Life Not At Strata.
ADDENDUM APRIL 1, 2022: Reilly is now up to Strata #7 or so. While the Morning Call still has the will to promote the NIZ, they no longer have the manpower...they're pressed nowadays just to report the local news. A block out from the NIZ, Allentown remains a hard place, and it will get harder.
The current national real estate frenzy has even propelled the downtown tenements into astronomical prices. The new investors will discover that the tenant base is not reliable enough to meet their debt service...foreclosures will be rampant. Letters from the code department will go to corporate holding companies, and be ignored...Welcome back to 2008.
Mike, I think we will agree this NIZ legislation provides the perfect example of the government's complete failure to spur urban redevelopment. Those of us old enough to remember the 60's witnessed similar disastrous efforts. In Pittsburgh where I grew up places like East Liberty that were destroy by government "urban Redevelopment" are now coming back to life on their own once the "project's parts finally removed. You also have drawn attention to the natural growth and redevelopment that has occurred on 7th street. People, business, and investment all seek the same thing, stability, quality, and potential growth, none of which can be found in Allentown. This common sense is lost on politicians.
ReplyDeleteThat old saying about doing the same over and over and expecting a different result is sadly just so relevant.
ReplyDeleteMike them are some fine structures with out the 20yr life span. Were are the located in the city?
ReplyDeleteanon@5:50, the row depicted above is NOT from Allentown
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