The Waterfront to break ground in July

Construction is expected begin in July on the $305 million The Waterfront development – featuring nine buildings – along the western bank of the Lehigh River in downtown Allentown.

“The entire site is about 26 acres, 13 acres to the south and 13 acres to the north,” said Zachary Jaindl, chief operations officer of Jaindl Enterprises during Thursday afternoon’s on-site press conference hosted by Commercial Real Estate Women Lehigh Valley.

“Our main priority with this is creating jobs,” he said. “We’ve added six Class-A office buildings to the space and expect about 2,900 jobs to be permanently established upon full build-out.”

In addition to six office buildings, three residential units will be built, as well as two parking decks. Also planned are retail and restaurants.

“Originally there were going to be 172 apartments, but recently we’ve increased that to 433,” Jaindl said. “There will be two parking structures totaling 2,200 parking spaces with about 800 more surface spots throughout the site.”

The Waterfront is within the Neighborhood Improvement Zone and will offer tax incentives to businesses that lease office space. The site is generating about $120,000 annually in tax revenue; once completed, more than $3.9 million annually in taxes will be generated, an official said.

The first building to go up, starting in July, will be at 615 or 645 Waterfront Drive – possibly the latter because of strong interest from tenants.

“Building 645 is near 50-percent leased, and we’re only about 10,000 square feet out from being able to start construction on that,” said developer Ryan S. Dunn.

Michael Dunn Co., Dunn Twiggar and Jaindl Enterprises are developing the project.

“If we’re able to sign a lease in July, we’ll be able to provide tenants the ability to move in during the fourth quarter of 2016 into the first quarter of 2017,” Dunn said.

Building 645 will be five stories with a similar layout to – but smaller than – most of the other buildings. Because of its size, it will be able to be built in a shorter time, he said.

“We’ve got a number of proposals out there to tenants that fits their timeline very well,” Dunn said.

The buildings on-site are designed to be four to eight stories, but that could change, Dunn said.

“The market is going to drive ultimately where the height is going to be,” he said. “We picked about what we think the market demand is going to be.”

Two underground lines, each from a different transformer, will provide a dual feed of electricity to The Waterfront. Meanwhile, PPL Electric Utilities is rebuilding its Allentown substation to handle the increased load from what will be at least $1.3 billion in downtown redevelopment, including the City Center projects.

“For certain tenants, it’s a great asset and a great amenity,” Dunn said. “It’s very appealing for businesses in health care and finance that can’t afford to lose power.”

Source: LVB