City Center Group reached a milestone Wednesday with the opening of the Standard apartments in downtown Allentown, the developer\u2019s 15th residential building in the city.<\/p>\n
A group of officials from City Center and the Lehigh Valley were on hand to cut the ribbon on the four-story building that stands at 111 N. Sixth St. and has 257 units.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that makes this building special is that it is a model of attainability by design,\u201d said Zach Sienicki, City Center\u2019s chief operating officer. \u201cThe Standard was intentionally designed to deliver quality without inflating the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rent for a studio apartment begins at about $1,290 per month and goes up to $2,015 per month for two bedrooms. There are 130 studios, 89 one-bedroom and 38 two-bedroom apartments.<\/p>\n
Amenities include high-speed internet, a fitness center, dog park, courtyard with fire pits, and a private pedestrian bridge connecting directly to a parking deck across Sixth Street. Residents pay a fee for parking, along with a $60 amenities fee.<\/p>\n
The pet-friendly apartments feature vinyl-wood plank flooring, washer and dryers, open kitchens, luxury bathrooms and stainless-steel appliances.<\/p>\n
Sienicki said the building is already 15% leased, with many residents already moved in as final top-floor finishes are completed.<\/p>\n
The property was once home to The Morning Call\u2019s office, which occupied the space for roughly a century until 2020. City Center bought the property from Tribune Media in 2016 for $8.5 million.<\/p>\n
In its place comes the Standard, which was built for $53 million. It stands in Allentown\u2019s Neighborhood Improvement Zone, the city\u2019s unique tax zone, but City Center did not use NIZ funding for construction.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Mike Schlossberg emphasized the significance of the project being conventionally financed rather than directly NIZ-funded. He said it\u2019s an example of how downtown revitalization is moving toward self-sustaining private investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project has obviously benefited significantly from the NIZ,\u201d said Schlossberg, D-Lehigh. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t funded by the NIZ, and that\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first put this thing together, the purpose of it was not to make sure that developers and housing and office parks were perpetually dependent upon a finance mechanism from the state or the city, but that over the long run, it would create an environment where housing developments like this could thrive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said buildings such as the Standard are a stepping stone toward homeownership in Allentown.<\/p>\n
\u201cProjects like this one will invite 257 new families to Allentown to start on that American dream,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can go from an incredible apartment here at The Standard, save up, and then go out into the city of Allentown and buy a home, and start a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Center Group reached a milestone Wednesday with the opening of the Standard apartments in downtown Allentown, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,60,8071,433,157,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-288079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-city-center","tag-lehigh-county","tag-lehigh-valley","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\/288079","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=288079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}