WATCHING THE WORKFLOW
Allentown’s waterfront district is opening soon. A tour showed off the latest development.
About 10 years after developers unveiled plans to convert Allentown’s long-deteriorating riverfront into a complex of office and residential buildings, visitors got to tour one of the new buildings under development Thursday.
The six-story building at 615 Waterfront Drive, slated for completion in October, is the first of what developers expect to be 12 buildings: five offices, four residential buildings and three parking structures.
The project, flanking the Lehigh River and the recently reopened Tilghman Street Bridge, includes half a mile of River Walk — a promenade style walkway — as well as outdoor recreational spaces such as the River Theatre amphitheater and Kift Square; and the recently announced Riverside Drive.
“We are trying to create a harmonious location that combines work and life,” said Zac Jaindl, COO of developer Jaindl Enterprises. “The waterfront is part of the beautiful next chapter of Allentown that’s already occurring downtown.”
The company plans to stagger the buildings’ completions, beginning each successive construction when the previous construction is halfway complete. The entire development will be finalized in an estimated eight years, Jaindl said.
First up, at 615 Riverfront, is the Mohrbank building. It’s named for William H. Mohr, a founder of Lehigh Structural Steel Co., which originally occupied the waterfront land. Mohrbank will be bordered by Kift Square and Mullen Square, recreational spaces named after the two other founders of Lehigh Structural Steel. Jaindl noted his company values commemo
rating the past, “tying in what will be with what has been.”
Jaindl said that real estate development is his family’s way of giving back to the community. The former steel site, which was being used as a scrap yard, will eventually generate over $4 million in real estate tax for the city, he said. According to the COO, the additional taxes will “raise the quality of life, introduce new work opportunities, and places for people to relocate.”
Though the residential buildings are still years from completion, they are already drawing interested tenants, especially from the business community, Jaindl said. Though it is too early to secure an apartment, he said people regularly approach him in hopes of reserving one.
The waterfront will also feature several new public spaces, which Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, hopes will minimize inequity in the Lehigh Valley’s most economically disadvantaged neighborhood.
According to Bradley, before the redevelopment, the riverfront was inaccessible to nearby residents due to residual sewage contamination from the steel plant. The area exacerbated inequity because it was a “huge environmental concern.” The remediation of the contamination means the public will eventually have full access to the riverfront again.
Meanwhile, the first part of Riverside Drive, a 3 ½-mile-long multimodal redevelopment project, opened May 25. The road running from Linden Street to Furnace Street will help connect the Lehigh Valley’s business center to the waterfront. Eventually, Riverside Drive will stretch from Race Street in Whitehall Township across the Lehigh River from Catasauqua.
Jaindl Enterprises is collaborating on the lane with Lehigh County, Allentown, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, and has not yet released announcements on the drive’s phase two.