{"id":159877,"date":"2026-04-07T22:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159877\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:17:11","slug":"its-amazing-bethlehem-officials-announce-plans-for-15m-south-side-community-center-bethelehm-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159877\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It&#8217;s amazing&#8217;: Bethlehem officials announce plans for $15M South Side Community Center | Bethelehm Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM, Pa. &#8211; Bethlehem Mayor William Reynolds said the South Side Community Center will bring everyone together.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One of the things that people have talked about for a long time was just the lack of a recreation center, the lack of a community center in south Bethlehem,&#8221; said Mayor Reynolds.<\/p>\n<p>In a video, the city announced it will be working with River Crossing YMCA and United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley to plan the South Side Community Center.<\/p>\n<p>The center will be built alongside the Bethlehem Greenway on Mechanic Street between Webster and Taylor streets.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For us, this is an extension of our community schools work into the neighborhood,&#8221; said Marci Lesko, president and CEO of United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re so excited to be a part of this project. Our mission is to serve our communities with program services and membership to provide opportunities to develop spirit, mind and body,&#8221; said Zane Moore, president and CEO of River Crossing YMCA.<\/p>\n<p>The city is allocating $1 million toward the estimated $15 million project.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Mayor, the center will come with a basketball court and flex space for all to use.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think there&#8217;s a lot of isolation and I think people right now are feeling that they need to be connected,&#8221; said Mayor Reynolds.<\/p>\n<p>It will be just blocks away from the Flying V, which Matt Vymazal owns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s amazing. Anytime that there&#8217;s a possibility for the community to get together, it&#8217;s wonderful and when the city is involved and can help out with that, even better,&#8221; said Vymazal.<\/p>\n<p>The United Way said you can donate toward the project on its website.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope people take away the fact that the community was involved in the design and the vision of this work and so it&#8217;s our great honor to watch that vision come to life,&#8221; said Lesko.<\/p>\n<p>The Mayor said he is hoping to announce a timeline for the project in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. &#8211; Bethlehem Mayor William Reynolds said the South Side Community Center will bring everyone together. &#8220;One&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":["post-159877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159877","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=159877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}