Sought-after workforce welcomed
ADP’s new offices in Five City Center bring 1,000 young professionals to downtown Allentown
Music blared Thursday morning in Allentown, as hundreds of people in suits and business attire — some seated on white folding chairs along Eighth Street, others looking down from office windows — plus spectators and construction workers in hard hats looked on.
The workers hooted and hollered, shouted and applauded — and were joined by city and state workers, including Gov. Tom Wolf — as ADP officially opened its office in Five City Center.
It’s the type of scene Allentown has long hoped for, with its one-ofa-kind Neighborhood Improvement Zone designed to attract just the sort of young professional that makes up the ADP workforce.
Among those in the crowd were 20-something workers Melissa Mastro and Joanna Solt, who seemed pleased with their new office as they waited for the ceremony to begin.
“It’s super-spacious,” said Mastro, of Lower Nazareth Township. “It’s very, very beautiful. It gives us more of a corporate and united vibe.”
ADP, which stands for Automatic Data Processing, completed its consolidation of several Lehigh Valley offices and is leasing the top
10 floors of Five City Center, the 13-story office tower that opened this year at Eighth and Hamilton streets.
After arriving in the Valley in 2006, ADP was out of space locally and exploring other markets before deciding to lease Five City Center. The company consolidated 850 area employees from three locations into the building, and is leasing enough space to eventually house up to nearly double the workforce — 1,600 workers.
Already, workers have begun to infiltrate downtown establishments, mostly bars and restaurants. Later Thursday, hundreds flowed out of the office to attend what one employee called an early afterwork gathering.
“Everything down here is open, clean; everything you need is within a couple of blocks of this location,” said Chuck Gilmore of Lenhartsville, a fouryear ADP employee and one of the first to start working in Five City Center during the summer. “It just really is such an eyeopener for anyone thinking about moving into the city.”
During the ceremony, President and CEO Carlos Rodriguez said ADP now has slightly more than 1,000 Allentown employees. The growth, he said, is based on the company’s track record of serving clients large and small worldwide, and of nurturing employee talent.
“Success breeds success,” Rodriguez said. “We are here because of the associates who have created a successful track record [for company growth].”
Mastro and Solt, of Kutztown, typify the kind of employees ADP wants — young, eager, willing-to-learn workers who can make $35,000 a year before commissions, with an opportunity for career growth.
They’re the type Allentown wants too, to continue reinvigorating its downtown. Speaker after speaker at Thursday’s event, including Wolf, noted the significance of Thursday’s ribbon-cutting for Allentown and the Valley, with hundreds more workers providing economic spinoffs ranging from going out for lunches to one day, perhaps, moving into Center City.
“I am proud my old company made the decision to be here,” Wolf said, noting his former business used ADP for its payroll processing.
Several merchants and food places along Hamilton and Eighth streets said they haven’t noticed an uptick in business since ADP’s arrival. Some said their business traffic has depended on existing customers, not new office dwellers, noting the former PPL Plaza in the 800 block of Hamilton Street failed to bring new shoppers when it opened about 20 years ago. But they still sounded guardedly optimistic.
“I hope for better business in the next year,” said Young Lee, owner of H.Y. Jewelry at 728 Hamilton St.
But one block away at Linden and Eighth streets, owner David Vargas of Tu Mundo Empanadas said he has been feeding ADP employees hundreds of his wrapped turnovers. In late August, he filled an order for 420 empanadas, which led to more orders. “Now it’s been crazy,” said Vargas, working long hours to satisfy workers like Brady Knerr of Macungie, who said he recently tasted his first empanada.
“It was fantastic,” Knerr said. Spurred by the NIZ, in which investors can tap into state tax money created by their developments to help pay their construction loans, downtown Allentown’s skyline has drastically changed in recent years.
ADP’s move brings the single largest commercial investment in downtown Allentown’s history, according to state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who authored the NIZ legislation.
Rodriguez said afterward the company attributes its growth largely to the hired talent.
“It’s not tax credits; it’s not the weather,” Rodriguez said. “It’s, ‘Can we find the right talent?’ And that’s exactly what we have found here.”
The company, which ranks 239 on the Fortune 500 list of top companies, is seeking slightly more than $1 million in job creation tax credits, said Michael Gerber, a spokesman for the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
“In the grand scheme of things, the tax credit is minuscule in terms of the overall economic value to the area,” said Tom Perrotti, ADP president of worldwide sales and marketing. “And that’s really where we want to focus.”