the former Walnut Street Garage,<\/a> located just east of Main Street \u2014 with its newest edition opening Thursday. <\/p>\nIt\u2019ll be taller than its predecessor and offer fewer spots, but will leave room next door for more development.<\/p>\n
Addressing the few dozen people gathered outside his business Monday, Neville Gardner said it\u2019s been a pleasure operating in the historic Main Street area for 40 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a merchant, of course, I\u2019m delighted that the [Walnut Street] parking garage is opening. Two years \u2014 it\u2019s been a long time. But you can\u2019t make a cake without breaking eggs.”<\/p>\n
Neville Gardner, owner of Donegal Square Irish and Celtic shop and nearby McCarthy\u2019s Red Stag Pub and Whiskey Bar<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a merchant, of course, I\u2019m delighted that the parking garage is opening,\u201d said Gardner, owner of Donegal Square Irish and Celtic shop and nearby McCarthy\u2019s Red Stag Pub and Whiskey Bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years \u2014 it\u2019s been a long time. But you can\u2019t make a cake without breaking eggs.”<\/p>\n
In 2021, Bethlehem Parking Authority invested about $90,000 in the Downtown Bethlehem Association and Southside Arts District, officials said.<\/p>\n
This year, officials said, BPA has invested more than $600,000 into streetlamp upgrades and \u201cbeautification efforts\u201d for the holidays across the city and its two downtowns \u2014 such as new lights, red bows, garland and Bethlehem Stars on street lamps.<\/p>\n
![\"Walnut](\"https:\/\/static.lehigh-v.lehigh-valley.production.k1.m1.brightspot.cloud\/dims4\/default\/43ac6ed\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4032x2268+0+0\/resize\/880x495!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flehigh-valley-brightspot.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2F8b%2Fef%2F6e63d06c4989b0a05ea8e27bd901%2Fimg-0855-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Will Oliver<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n
Walnut Week in Downtown Bethlehem, continuing Nov. 18-21, 2025, will help keep the city’s momentum strong heading into the holidays, officials said at the Main-Walnut intersection on Monday, Nov. 17.<\/p>\n
BPA Executive Director Steven Fernstrom said part of the parking revenue is invested back into city infrastructure, programming, public parks and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore people want to come here, and that growing demand is why these investments matter.”<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Parking Authority Executive Director Steven Fernstrom<\/p>\n
\u201cMore people want to come here, and that growing demand is why these investments matter,” Fernstrom said.<\/p>\n
Reynolds said BPA and city officials worked to find how to move long-term parkers off the street and into garages to create turnover for businesses, investing any money made back into public needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is regulate parking, because we have a good problem to have: More people want to come downtown than we have places for them to park,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a systemic problem that we try to solve to be able to help out all of our small businesses, whether or not you’re a restaurant or a retailer, or you\u2019re someone that just wants to walk up and down Walnut Street.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Walnut](\"https:\/\/static.lehigh-v.lehigh-valley.production.k1.m1.brightspot.cloud\/dims4\/default\/c4b3fc1\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4032x2268+0+0\/resize\/880x495!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flehigh-valley-brightspot.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2F44%2Fd1%2F4a8e149947be817804c69ba5e7c8%2Fimg-0899-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Will Oliver<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n
Walnut Week in Downtown Bethlehem, continuing Nov. 18-21, 2025, will help keep the city’s momentum strong heading into the holidays, officials said at the Main-Walnut intersection on Monday, Nov. 17.<\/p>\n
Christmas City USA<\/p>\n
Bethlehem\u2019s annual tree-lighting ceremony<\/a> will begin at 5 p.m. Nov. 28. <\/p>\nWendling said Small Business Saturday will be the next day \u201cbecause Santa shops local and will put you on the nice list for doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s live advent calendar is every night from Dec. 1-23 at the Sun Inn courtyard just off Main Street.<\/p>\n
The community advent breakfast will take place at 8 a.m. Dec. 6 at Moravian Village on Wood Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 Coming off a bustling weekend of holiday atmosphere across town, this week marks more to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,22848,22853,22854,22849,3496,22850,22851,12746,22852,635],"class_list":["post-37117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-parking-authority","tag-bethlehem-walnut-street-garage-opening","tag-bethlehem-walnut-week","tag-donegal-square","tag-downtown-bethlehem-association","tag-red-stag","tag-tammy-wendling","tag-walnut-street-garage","tag-where-to-park-in-bethlehem","tag-will-oliver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37117","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=37117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}