Developer, officials break ground on new Allentown apartment complex

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The project to build a new apartment complex dubbed The Swans took flight this month a few blocks from Center City Allentown.

Officials who represent the city joined developer Gary Newman on Thursday for a groundbreaking ceremony at 826 Turner St., where Blackstone Structures plans to put up a seven-story building with 142 units.

Newman, co-founder of Blackstone Structures, thanked city officials and employees for helping him work through the approval process.

Building the complex — “the bricks and sticks” portion of the project — is “probably the easiest part,” Newman said.

“The hardest part is getting through the approvals process,” Newman said, calling it “very vigorous.”

But taking time to work through planning and zoning hurdles will help ensure The Swans is “best in class,” he said.

'Projects like this are critical': Siegel

State Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Allentown, said the complex is “a testament” to the success of the city’s one-of-a-kind tax district known as the Neighborhood Improvement Zone.

“The ambition behind the Neighborhood Improvement Zone was always this — that it would ultimately be such an incentive that developers around the country really would see the value in Allentown,” Siegel said.

State Sen. Nick Miller, D-Lehigh Valley, said the project is another example of the NIZ’s “continued progress” in driving investment and development beyond Center City.

And the building’s 142 market-rate units will help put a dent in the Lehigh Valley’s housing deficit, Siegel said.

The region needs about 9,000 more housing units to meet demand because of suppressed housing construction and consistent population growth over the past decade, according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

“Projects like this are critical,” Siegel said. “Every unit we add to our housing here in Allentown chips away at that housing deficit in the Lehigh Valley.”