A popular north Bethlehem restaurant is under an agreement of sale with the Bethlehem Fraternal Order of Police, who intend to turn it into a wellness center and meeting space for the city\u2019s officers.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem\u2019s zoning hearing board voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the FOP\u2019s application to turn the Adagio Seafood Restaurant at 530 Pembroke Road into a membership club for Bethlehem\u2019s unionized police force. According to Robert Nichelson, president of the Bethlehem FOP, the existing restaurant is already considered a \u201cnon-conforming use\u201d according to the city\u2019s zoning code. It is located in a high-density residential zoning district.<\/p>\n
The FOP plans to convert parts of the building into a members-only gym with weight equipment, padded training room for defensive tactical training, and a classroom space for seminars and union membership meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the main things that we\u2019re doing is providing space for wellness and training for police officers \u2014 healthier, happier police officers benefit the entire city of Bethlehem,\u201d Nichelson said.<\/p>\n
Nichelson said the building\u2019s use as a residential club would be a benefit to the community, and less noticeable and disruptive than the current restaurant use because the building would be restricted to retired and active city police officers. There are around 300 current and former police officers who are members of the Bethlehem FOP, though many of the retired officers have since left the area and would likely not frequent the building, he said.<\/p>\n
The FOP is only purchasing the restaurant building, not its liquor license, although alcohol will be available on site for officers in a lounge-like, casual setting, Nichelson said. Zoning board members approved the membership club use on the condition that alcohol not be consumed on site after 2 a.m., to which the FOP does not object.<\/p>\n
It is unclear when the ownership of the Adagio\u2019s Seafood Restaurant will officially change hands. A phone call to a number associated with the restaurant was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A popular north Bethlehem restaurant is under an agreement of sale with the Bethlehem Fraternal Order of Police,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,153,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-13548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-bethlehem","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-northampton-county","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13548","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=13548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}