ALLENTOWN, Pa. – To make way for the new, you have to get rid of the old.<\/p>\n
At least you do for what would the tallest building in the Lehigh Valley. The Ideal Tower is proposed for 8th and Hamilton in downtown Allentown.<\/p>\n
The property is made up of four buildings, most of them built in the early 1900’s, according to the City’s Historical Architectural Review Board.<\/p>\n
801 Hamilton, a five-story masonry building, was constructed in 1902. The Review Board Summary calls it an example of Colonial Revival commercial architecture.<\/p>\n
However, the ground floor has been altered over time.<\/p>\n
805 was built in the early 20’s. According to a 1922 article in The Morning Call, the New Jersey Terra Cotta Company supplied the cladding material for the facade, the summary said.<\/p>\n
It is not known when the next building, 807, was built. However, HARB estimates it was somewhere between 1934 and 1945.<\/p>\n
The last property, 809-813, was constructed in 1926 for the S.S. Kresge Co. Store in a Spanish Renaissance Revival style. The ground-floor facade of the building has also seen historical changes over time.<\/p>\n
The buildings have a historic classification of “B,” meaning they have some historic significance but can be torn down.<\/p>\n
“And this is why we have things like HARB. We need to make sure that as we continue to grow as a city, that we respect our past but that we’re not limiting our future,” said\u00a0Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk.<\/p>\n
Tuerk previously voiced support for the project when it was announced a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The completed building would be slightly taller than the PPL Tower, even though it has fewer floors.<\/p>\n
“8th and Hamilton is a pivotal corner in downtown Allentown’s ongoing growth and redevelopment,” Tuerk said.<\/p>\n
Ideal Concepts, the developer for the project, say they’ve been working closely with the review board and will be submitting documentation showing the economic impact on revenue going from the four smaller buildings to one large tower.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the city’s zoning board will have final say on the demolition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – To make way for the new, you have to get rid of the old. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,60,38576,805],"class_list":{"0":"post-100280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-insideyourtown","14":"tag-lehighvalley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}