New downtown music hall gets OK from city
Allentown venue would have 1,500 capacity with a rooftop terrace
Allentown’s most prominent developer is one step closer to bringing a 1,500-person capacity music venue to downtown Allentown.
The city planning commission unanimously approved plans for the Archer Music Hall, a 31,000 square-foot, two-story music hall at 935-939 Hamilton St., on Tuesday afternoon. City Center, which has invested nearly $1 billion in downtown Allentown development, expects to begin construction on the new venue in May and wrap up in spring 2024.
Robert Dilorenzo, City Center’s director of planning and construction, said he expects the venue will bring over 200,000 visitors annually to downtown Allentown.
“We’ve been approached by some of the most successful operators in the nation that run these type of venues,” DiLorenzo said. “There is a need for this use in the Lehigh Valley market, and they believe Allentown is the perfect location for it.”
The Archer Music hall will feature a main stage with a 1,500to 1,800-person standing-room capacity, as well as a mezzanine and smaller stage, geared toward comedy acts, on the second floor. It will also have a traditional marquee with names of upcoming
acts on display from the sidewalk and a rooftop bar and terrace that will be open for three out of four seasons of the year.
A City Center news release compared the Archer Music Hall to the Philadelphia Fillmore, a 2,500-person-capacity venue
in the city’s Northern Liberties neighborhood.
DiLorenzo said the Archer will host at least three or four shows per week. He stressed that its shows would not compete with nearby venues PPL Center and Miller Symphony Hall, as the Archer will primarily feature up-and-coming music and comedy acts.
The new venue will bolster City Center’s efforts to revitalize Allentown’s western downtown neighborhood. Developers broke ground on a $25 million, 125-unit apartment building at nearby 1010 Hamilton St. over the summer and has two more buildings in the works nearby.
Planning commission members lauded City Center’s plans. Even though the music venue will not provide additional parking spaces — doing so isn’t required for retail businesses in the central business district — members said the Archer’s future patrons could use one of the many parking decks nearby.
“If there’s one thing that downtown Allentown has, in my opinion, it’s plenty of parking, so I don’t think people will have trouble finding a spot nearby, but they will have to walk a few feet,” said commission member Damien Brown.
City Center representatives will return to the planning commission next month for approval of a 140-room boutique hotel next to the venue.