Allentown Could Be Blueprint For New Development

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

ALLENTOWN, PA – Three years ago, run-down tattoo parlors and pawnshops dominated Hamilton Street, the main drag in Pennsylvania’s third-largest city.

Now they’re gone, replaced by high-tech firms, high-end restaurants, and a burst of construction activity. In 22 months, seven buildings of at least 10 stories have gone up along Hamilton Street, and two older buildings were rehabbed. The centerpiece is the PPL Center, a new, gleaming, 10,000-seat arena that this week opens as the new hockey home of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Flyers’ minor league affiliate.

Bolstered by special legislation that diverts most of the state taxes on new development within a 130-acre urban zone, supporters say what’s happened in Allentown could be a blueprint for other long-suffering small cities eager to shed their industrial past.

“I think we’re trying to change the Allentown identity,” Mayor Ed Pawlowski said over lunch Thursday at the Hamilton, one of five new downtown restaurants. “It was so jerry-rigged over the years there wasn’t much of an identity left.”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20141012_Allentown_could_be_blueprint_for_new_development.html#elAVd62cIEa7dzdL.99

Allentown Approves New Parking Garage Near Hockey Arena

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

Allentown officials have insisted they are prepared for the barrage of vehicles that will be coming into the city from the opening of the new PPL Centerhockey arena.

Now, those vehicles will have 1,000 additional spots to park in.

Allentown planners signed off today on a new seven-story parking garage at Sixth and Walnut streets, within walking distance of the arena and other major downtown development projects.

“The traffic’s coming, there’s nothing we can do about that,” said Oldrich Focuek, planning commission chairman. “You know ‘the British are coming?’ Well, the traffic is coming, and we’re trying to deal with that.”

Read more: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2014/09/allentown_approves_new_parking.html

National Penn Bank Says It Will Close Nine Branches, Cut Staff

After three years of stable operating expenses, and positive returns for investors in 2013, the owner of National Penn bank said this week it is cutting staff and consolidating nine branch locations.

“The consistency of our financial performance with such a strong return on assets is a tribute to the efforts of our entire team,” National Penn President and CEO Scott V. Fainor said in a statement.

National Penn Bancshares Inc.’s restructuring also includes previously announced plans to move its headquarters from Boyertown, Pa., to Center City Allentown.

Read more: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2014/01/national_penn_says_it_will_clo.html

Allentown Arena Starts To Get Its Roof Overhead

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

A milestone of sorts for Allentown’s new arena has begun.

Three massive cranes this morning began lifting the seven 236-foot-long roof supports, called trusses, into place above the 8,500-seat PPL Center. Workers hoisted 85 feet in the air in high-reach cherry-pickers will use pneumatic wrenches to fasten the trusses into place with massive bolts.

Each truss, a curved structural support laced with a series of steel triangles, weighs between 125,000 and 212,000 pounds.

The first truss is expected to take 14 to 16 hours to install. The trusses were constructed on the arena floor last week.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-arena-truss-installation-20131003,0,5253395.story#ixzz2glgUA0Eu
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Allentown’s City Center Gets NIZ Pay Day Of $14.4 Million

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

Close to half of the $31.8 million in mostly state tax dollars swept up by Allentown‘s arena zone last year will go to the private developer erecting an 11-story office building across Seventh Street from the arena.

City Center Investment Corp. will get $14.4 million of the tax dollars generated by its projects to put toward its construction and land acquisition loans.  The Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority will get $17.4 million to pay its debt for building PPL Center.

About $2 million would go into state coffers from a part of the city that is estimated to have been generating $22 million in state money before the Neighborhood Improvement Zone was created.

The figures were released Wednesday by ANIZDA Executive Director Sara Hailstone, a month after The Morning Call filed a Right-to-Know request for the information, which was compiled April 6 by authority consultants Compass Point and Concannon Miller.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-allentown-arena-zone-tax-dollars-20130529,0,4840494.story

Allentown Arena Construction On Schedule, Mayor Is Pleased

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

Six years ago Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, his city still smarting from losing the Sands casino to Bethlehem, first suggested that an arena might make a fine consolation prize.

Pawlowski on Wednesday, standing at the city’s $272 million arena complex, surrounded by dust and gravel, hard hats and heavy machines, looked downright satisfied.

With construction in full swing, steel and concrete rising from what was once a block of low-end stores and for a time just a muddy hole at Seventh and Hamilton streets, Pawlowski, media in tow, got his first tour of a project that he has been trying to make a reality for most of his time in office.

“It really is amazing when you think about going from the conceptual stage to something that is physically under construction,” Pawlowski said afterward.  “I wanted to show the amount of planning that has really gone into this construction process.”

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-allentown-hockey-arena-site-tour-20130424,0,2991685.story