ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A new stadium soon could pop up in the shadow of Allentown’s Coca-Cola Park.
Allentown City Planning Commission on Tuesday granted approval to Executive Education Academy’s request to build a multisport stadium with more than 4,000 seats.
The stadium is set to cover more than 125,000 square feet of the school’s parking lot, which neighbors that of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
The new stadium is designed to be "on stilts" — elevated by concrete columns and shear walls that resist lateral forces and prevent buildings from warping or collapsing.
All but about two dozen parking spaces in that area of the lot would remain usable — under the stadium.
Building the stadium on concrete columns is "the only option."Executive Education Academy charter school official
The charter school and the IronPigs are set to “closely coordinate” all events, so their lots are not used at the same time, according to Robert Lysek, the charter school’s chief executive officer.
That deal came after IronPigs co-owner and managing partner Joe Finley raised concerns last month about losing parking spaces if the stadium moved forward.
Executive Education Academy expects to incur significant extra costs to build the stadium “vertically,” a school official said Tuesday. “But it’s the only option.”
The charter school must provide city officials with a detailed plan of how they will manage events at the proposed stadium.
But the commission dropped a requirement for a full traffic study after Finley and Lysek’s agreement.
Executive Education Academy is set to demolish one of its buildings on a different property to offset additional paving at the stadium site.
