Allentown waterfront development gets OK, plan addresses traffic issues

Allentown project approved after developers present improved traffic flow ideas.

By this time next year, the American Parkway Bridge won't be the only new construction on the Lehigh River.

Allentown's Planning Commission on Wednesday unanimously granted final approval for the first phase of a $300 million development planned for the city's waterfront, clearing the way for developers to break ground on the site after nearly a year in the planning stages.

Phase 1 of the two-stage design calls for three brick-and-steel office buildings with first-floor retail shops and an 80-unit residential building wrapped around a parking garage. The project would be built by Waterfront Redevelopment Partners, a pairing of Dunn Twiggar Co. and developer Mark Jaindl, on the former site of Lehigh Structural Steel.

Developers needed the third of three approvals from the city to begin construction on the complex intended for the western bank of the Lehigh River. Development on the site, which begins south of the Tilghman Street Bridge and extends north to the future American Parkway Bridge, is expected to begin in the first or second quarter of 2014, now that the final approval is in place, developers said Wednesday.

Developer Zachary Jaindl said infrastructure improvements will be the first undertaking, but the first building — an eight-story structure with a riverfront restaurant on the first floor — could begin to rise from the site by June 2014, he said.

The first phase will take three to five years to complete, Jaindl said. Developers do not expect to start the second phase on the northern end of the site until the first phase is complete.

Developers presented the waterfront proposal to the city's Planning Commission in December 2012, and officials have been pushing it through the approval process ever since. Commissioners gave the project the second of three necessary approvals in July with several conditions, including one that required developers to present improved traffic plans before either of the project's two phases received final approval.

Concerns were raised throughout the process about the expected increase of traffic flow in the city's narrow waterfront corridor. By city ordinance, all intersections must operate at a D level or better on an A through F scale.

Two intersections near the waterfront development initially appeared to violate that requirement: the junction of Front and Allen streets and the yet unbuilt intersection of Front Street and American Parkway. But developers have proposed several adjustments, including a new traffic light at Front and Allen streets and the coordination of traffic lights up and down Front Street.

Those changes were enough to convince city engineers that the intersections would operate at the appropriate level, city planner Mike Hefele said.

At Wednesday's meeting, Jaindl said traffic issues had been "substantially resolved," but the project's engineers will continue to work with the city. Another traffic analysis will be completed once the American Parkway Bridge is completed. The target date is March 2015.

"With any development of this size, there's going to be added traffic," Jaindl said. "But we're looking to rehabilitate the area by reintroducing 26 acres of land that's currently not being utilized at all."

Source: Morning Call