ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Ambitious plans to redevelop the former Allentown State Hospital property could bring a new school to the city.
Executives with City Center, the developer behind the project dubbed “Northridge,” on Tuesday laid out their goals for the 195-acre property for the city planning commission.
Plans include building more than 1,000 housing units of all types, in addition to commercial and health care facilities, including a “micro-hospital” and assisted-living facilities.
The plan “checks all the [boxes] of what is ideal for a school site” because it has space for a field and playgrounds, and it can be done “at a much more reasonable price”Official with proposed Northridge development project
A majority of City Center’s four-hour-plus presentation centered on its plans to build a new school for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Their plans propose a two-story, 200,000-square-foot school with an athletics field along the west side of the sprawling property.
Students would access the school from Northridge Avenue, which City Center expects will serve as the development’s main entry point off Hanover Avenue.
Under the plans presented Tuesday, Allentown School District would buy several acres from City Center for the new facility.
An official with the project said the site “checks all the [boxes] of what is ideal for a school site” because it has space for a field and playgrounds, and it can be done “at a much more reasonable price” than a project at Mosser Elementary, less than two miles away.
Allentown planning officials did not act Tuesday on the proposed sketch plan for the school, which is set to come back before the commission in November.
Move from 'car-dependent' planning?
Many seemed to support City Center’s general plans for the school, but planning commission member Damien Brown said he felt it encouraged too much vehicular traffic while the rest of the development is meant to be walkable.
“Maybe I'm a little bit idealistic — I believe Northridge has the potential to attract a different type of resident,” Brown said.
“People, including myself, are sick of being forced into living in these car-dependent (communities) where you have to drive to work, for everything you do and everywhere you want to go — every day.”Planning Commission member Damien Brown, encouraging developers to better promote walkability at the proposed school
“People, including myself, are sick of being forced into living in these car-dependent [communities] where you have to drive to work, for everything you do and everywhere you want to go — every day.”
He challenged City Center to design a K-8 school that promotes walkability, saying it would be “an extremely strong asset.”
“Doing the opposite weakens the entire value proposition of the Northridge [development] tremendously,” Brown said.
Initial renderings showed a roundabout near planned educational buildings, but designers now are proposing to put a traffic light at that intersection.
John Wichner, a traffic engineer with Bowman Consulting, said roundabouts “absolutely have their benefits” if used in the right areas.
Officials from the Allentown School District “had some grave concerns” about students being forced to cross a roundabout, where vehicles do not always come to a stop and drivers are “not necessarily always looking out for all users,” such as pedestrians, Wichner said.
He recommended a “signalized intersection … with some of the bells and whistles of traffic-calming measures,” including curb bump-outs, narrowed lanes and bike lanes.
“We feel as though that's the best alternative” for the area near the school, he said.
