Part of Morning Call building to make way for apartments
City Center Investment Corp. plans to demolish a portion of the former Morning Call headquarters in downtown Allentown to make way for a five-story apartment building.
The Allentown Planning Commission has approved City Center’s plan for 101 N. Sixth St.
During planners’ Wednesday meeting, City Center representatives said the apartments would have 231 units.
The cleared space would also include a parking lot and playground for The Learning Hub, which is expanding its footprint in the building.
According to City Center’s application, the apartment building would take up about 175,000 square feet. It would also have a ground-level parking garage, courtyard
and dog park. A pedestrian bridge from the third floor would connect to the Transit Center parking garage across Sixth Street.
City Center announced in October that the Learning Hub is adding 85,000 square
feet to expand its early childhood education and health services.
City Center spokesperson Jeff Vaughan said a timetable for demolition and construction is being developed. The developer has 12 apartment
buildings in downtown Allentown with two more complexes under construction.
The Morning Call was located at Sixth and Linden streets from 1920 to 2020. The current building was
first constructed in 1930, with other sections added to it over the years.
The Morning Call was renting the space since 2014, when the former Tribune Media spun off its newspapers into a new company,
Tribune Publishing, while retaining control of the real estate. City Center bought the headquarters from Tribune Media in 2016 for $8.5 million.
The Morning Call left the space during the pandemic.