Demolition of Lehigh Motor Inn to get underway this week
The tumult of bulldozers crunching wood, concrete and glass will be welcome to Upper Macungie Township residents and officials this week when demolition of the blighted Lehigh Motor Inn gets underway.
Director of Community Development Daren Martocci told the Board of Supervisors on Thursday that remedial work at the vacant property at 5828 Memorial Road will begin Monday when PPL cuts the power lines to the empty property.
What will come next will be a welcome sight to supervisors and neighbors alike — the destruction of the buildings on the property facing Tilghman Street.
“We’ll have a party!” a resident in the audience shouted.
Demolition will begin Wednesday and take about five weeks, said Matthew Ott of Modus Construction LLC, the contractor that will perform the work.
He said Modus will begin by razing the inn before working to the rear of the property to take down the residential property and garage. The inn’s former office building will remain indefinitely as a base of operations for the contractor.
A cement crusher will pulverize the concrete slabs to use the material as fill for the site, Ott said.
Once the dust has settled, owner Minu Desai will be able to deliver on his longstanding promise to the township — the construction of a 91-room Marriott Suites hotel reaching four stories and measuring 14,000 square feet, along with a detached 7,575-square-foot restaurant with 210 tables.
In other business, the township’s public works department has begun tree-trimming to help motorists’ visibility along Krocks and Schantz roads, Martocci said, along with the addition of signs warning of upcoming bends in the road and line painting.
A request for signs prohibiting trucks along Cetronia Road and alerting motorists to reduced speeds is still being reviewed by PennDOT, he said.
Kevin Duffy is a freelance writer for The Morning Call.