Bethlehem City Council offers another way to potentially allow Lidl grocery store

Developer Abe Atiyeh is still considering a grocery store for land he owns at Center Street and Dewberry Avenue even after Bethlehem City Council on Tuesday rejected a zoning amendment to allow grocery stores in the city’s institutional zones.

Atiyeh has been fighting with Bethlehem officials for more than a decade over a 5-acre grassy property at 1838 Center St., near Bethlehem Catholic High School. Other proposals for the site included a four-story, 125-unit apartment complex and a psychiatric hospital, but neither the hospital nor apartments are allowed under the property’s institutional zoning.

In July, Atiyeh said the German grocery chain Lidl was interested in the site. Lidl opened its first Lehigh Valley location in Wilson in May 2019. A representative from the grocery store chain confirmed this summer that they were looking at a site in Bethlehem.

The zoning, which allows for hospitals and medical offices, prohibits grocery stores as well, but Atiyeh pressed forward with his plan.

The city and Lehigh Valley planning commissions both recommended against the zoning amendment, which Darlene Heller, the city director of planning and zoning, said would apply to all properties in the city’s institutional zones.

Bethlehem’s institutional zone is one of the largest districts in the city, with properties owned by Lehigh University, Moravian College and Lehigh Valley Health Network.

“To change all of the zoning across the entire city in one of the largest zoning districts is too much for one specific project,” Council President Adam Waldron said Tuesday.

He suggested Atiyeh pursue a zoning overlay instead.

Atiyeh said that’s what he intends to do.

“We will come back with a plan more specific for that site. Lidl really likes that site because it’s in a beautiful residential neighborhood,” Atiyeh said after the meeting.

He will request an institutional overlay district for the property. That plan would be reviewed by the Bethlehem Planning Commission, which would make a recommendation to City Council, Zoning Officer Craig Peiffer said. The overlay district allows for retail stores like a pharmacy and grocery store.

A roughly two-block portion of Lehigh University’s property bound by Morton Street, Vine Street, Packer Avenue and Webster Street includes such an overlay, Peiffer said.

In addition to the grocery store, council held a public hearing Tuesday on Atiyeh’s proposal to rezone 10 acres of rural land so that it can be developed into a four-story independent living center at 2105 Creek Road.

Planners rejected that proposal in March, and on Tuesday night Heller said she does not recommend the change because city planning goals include preserving environmentally sensitive areas like the floodplains where the property is located.

Atiyeh has argued the 40-unit independent living center and 60-spot parking lot would provide affordable senior living in the area, and he said the development would take up only 1 acre of the land.

Council is scheduled to take an initial vote on the change at its Oct. 6 meeting.