ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Dozens of new affordable apartments could be available in Center City within a year.<\/p>\n
Allentown and state officials joined leaders from Cortex Residential on Wednesday at South Eighth and Walnut streets, where they broke ground on a 38-unit complex for people with low-to-moderate incomes.<\/p>\n
Brittany Ciardi, a senior vice president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, called the event an \u201cincredible milestone in the heart of Allentown.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complex will offer \u201chope, opportunity and stability for individuals and families who call Allentown home\u201d and help \u201cmeet a need for accessible housing in the city,\u201d Ciardi said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a part of a larger vision, rooted in Allentown Vision 2030, to make sure that as our city grows, everyone has a place here.”<\/p>\n
‘Housing for everybody’<\/p>\n
State Rep. Pete Schweyer, D-Lehigh, said the new complex will add to \u201call the new housing that\u2019s being developed\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s housing for everybody,\u201d Schweyer said. \u201cWe have all kinds of options here. <\/p>\n
“Regardless of your income and regardless of where you work or where you’re from, we have an opportunity for everybody to live and participate in this incredible, incredible downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cortex Residential President Jonathan Strauss thanked co-founder Patrick Perone and a slew of elected officials, including council members and the city\u2019s delegation in Harrisburg, many of whom helped secure much-needed funding for the project.<\/p>\n
The developer received $14 million from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency and Allentown contributed $2 million from its coronavirus pandemic-relief funds to the project. <\/p>\n
And Lehigh County helped fill a funding gap to get it over the line.<\/p>\n
‘Part of gateway into the city’<\/p>\n
Cortex set out to \u201ccheck two boxes\u201d with its Walnut Square project: building in a place of need and building in an area of opportunity for future residents, Strauss said.<\/p>\n
Its location offers \u201caccessibility to urban amenities like public transportation, social services, health care \u2026 and most importantly, jobs,\u201d Strauss said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very important to us that we’re building affordable housing that has proximity to resources that can promote socioeconomic growth for [residents].”<\/p>\n
Jonathan Strauss, Cortex Residential co-founder<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very important to us that we’re building affordable housing that has proximity to resources that can promote socioeconomic growth for individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re proud of this location, and we’re proud to be a part of this gateway into the city.”<\/p>\n
Cortex expects to deliver the three-story, 44,000-square-foot facility in \u201c10 to 12 months,\u201d Strauss said, with pre-leasing registrations to open before its completion.<\/p>\n
He also praised leaders of the church next door that sold Cortex its corner property. The developer demolished a parish house on the now-cleared lot to start the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank Life Church for seeing the vision and understanding the importance of carving out this site\u201d for affordable housing, Strauss said.<\/p>\n
The historic church, the former St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, will not be touched as part of the project, Strauss has said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Dozens of new affordable apartments could be available in Center City within a year. Allentown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,18680,3154,121,282,120,18681],"class_list":{"0":"post-28977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-affordable-housing","10":"tag-allentown-development","11":"tag-allentown-headlines","12":"tag-allentown-housing","13":"tag-allentown-news","14":"tag-cortex-residential"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977","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=28977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}