photo courtesy of Mike Huber, Coplay
above reprinted from March of 2011
ADDENDUM AUGUST 22, 2023:The bridge has just been rebuilt, and the portion of the earlier railroad bridge show above was removed.
ADDENDUM JUNE 12, 2025: Between the NIZ handouts and compliant city planners, future archaeologists will be wondering about two new projects. The 2013 blueprint and undersized parcel at 9th and Walnut has a new owner. Compliant planners had kept Bruce Loch's pencil tower plan on the mini parcel marketable for over a decade. I remember back in the day in the mid 1980's, when Daddona sold Loch the undersized city parcels in the west end, and allowed him to build houses on them.
The second NIZ fueled project is an oversized building near the river on Front Street. This will be the second harvest for the boys building at the former Neuweiler site. Pat Browne's NIZ is the gift that keeps giving for a few developers, regardless of parking or other quality of life issues plaguing Allentown.
Both projects have supporters, and I'm not saying that they are bad for Allentown. I am, however, injecting some institutional knowledge into the projects, and reminding readers that they will be paid for with our diverted state taxes.
I never took the press releases about this building seriously. I suspect all they really are is press releases, but River City always needs another boy’s band. Or so some think. I first of all, is there a need for such a building? Has anyone expressed a need for more office space? There seems to be enough unoccupied space in the recently built NIZ buildings. Are people waiting for floor-through luxury apartments in downtown Allentown without parking? Again, as a consumer, I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteI think about the "Riverfront" devlopment in Allentown and smile a bit. It was first announced in the mid-2000s, 2005 or so. For many years the development consisted of a parking lot under the Tilghman Stret Bridge and little else. Then someone I knew got excited about them putting up steel uprights and girders and eventually one building was put up. That was about 2020 or so.
DeleteThen after that they made a new street to the east of Front street and diverted the traffic from Front down to this new street that is a nice asphalt stretch that goes to nowhere.
I must admit going into the First Ward is not a part of my routine day, and when they finally started tearing down Neuweilers I suppose about a year and a half ago I only noticed it when I went accross the bridge and turned right to go down Front and saw all of the work going on there.
I've always wondered what the attraction of new buisnesses and new apartments would be in the Ward especially at New York rents.. to live along the Lehigh River.
I don't know, all of the rationale behind the NIZ just confuses me. Build it and they will come perhaps? Sorry, Allentown is not a "Field of Deams"
Free construction money (NIZ) can create many unnecessary structures to be built. See the entirety of downtown Allentown.
DeleteBut, the money is NOT free. It’s our dollars paid into what is generally considered a corrupt state government. Curiously, the whole scheme has been kept mostly quiet from homeowners all across the state. Those folks are paying for this, too! Amazingly, with few exceptions, no one seems to care.
anon@9:01: Demand has nothing to do with the NIZ incentive. If your debt service is paid by Pa. tax payers, why not build a free building and worry about demand later. Reilly and Jaindl have the Pa. cigarette tax to boot at their disposal. Even with Jarrett Coleman trying to educate his fellow state senators, no one cares. Pennsylvania is so steeped in corruption, it is accepted as business as usual.
ReplyDeleteMike you of all in your anchant experience must remember when ernie enterpizes was arrested for buying cigarettes down south and selling them locally. The arrest was only because ernie pissed off some locals in power now with his way of doing bissiness.
DeleteThat tax monies is supposedly ment for CHIP as well as indigent cancer sufferers.
Pat Browne deserves to be in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Political Hall of Fame, but it appears that any such remarks will not be tolerated here at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAlas…
Hall of Shame... fixed it for ya!
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