The Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority has moved parcels of land in and out of the city\u2019s special taxing zone to help improve sidewalks along Seventh Street.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the ANIZDA board approved up to $2.2 million in funding for streetscape renovations in the 100 and 200 blocks of North Seventh Street. The project will include new sidewalks and curbs, street trees, trash and recycling receptacles, crosswalks, bike racks and parking kiosks between Linden and Chew streets.<\/p>\n
A section of Seventh Street, about 0.41 acres between Turner and Chew streets, will be moved into the NIZ to receive the funding. A 0.41-acre parcel in Buck Boyle Park has been removed from the NIZ.<\/p>\n
ANIZDA Executive Director Steve Bamford said the NIZ is limited to 128 acres by law, so if land is added to it, a similarly-sized piece of land must be removed.<\/p>\n
Vicky Kistler, Allentown\u2019s community and economic development director, said the sidewalks on that stretch are in very poor condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone who comes to our city at one point or another ends up between Linden and Chew.,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s part of your destination if you\u2019re accessing downtown. We have broken sidewalks, we have missing trees, we have poorly marked crosswalks, we have uneven terrain, which is particularly dangerous at dusk and in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Construction is expected to start in June 2026 and be completed by May 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority has moved parcels of land in and out of the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,60,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-27937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27937","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=27937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}