BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Instead of becoming home to 240 apartments as once proposed, the former IQE property at 119 Technology Drive will now house the U.S. headquarters for GfM Bremen, a German pharmaceutical company.
Real estate firm NAI Summit this week announced the sale of the property with a $5.52 million price tag.
On its website (translated from German to English), GfM calls itself “the world market leader in micronization for the production of high-quality pharmaceutical active ingredients and excipients.” Think of micronization as “ultra-fine grinding,” as the company says it reduces particle sizes to less than 5 micrograms.
“What’s most significant, really, is that this is an economic sector that we think the Lehigh Valley is really primed for, and the ball is starting to roll."Don Cunningham, CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp., on the city's newest addition to the pharmaceutical sector
GfM’s services also span many different areas of the market, including food, nutrition, and cosmetics.
GfM Bremen and property brokers Michael Adams and Sarah Finney Miller have yet to return comment about the purchase.
'The ball is starting to roll'
Don Cunningham, CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp., said there’s something to be said for high-end, market-rate apartments and what they may add to Bethlehem. But a new business working on the production side of the pharmaceutical industry should be a nice addition to the local economy and a more appropriate use of the property, he said.
“What’s most significant, really, is that this is an economic sector that we think the Lehigh Valley is really primed for, and the ball is starting to roll,” said Cunningham, who also served as mayor of Bethlehem from 1998-2003.
On land formerly belonging to Bethlehem Steel, the 48,000-square-foot, one-story building just off the Fahy Bridge features 32 clean rooms, a warehouse area, three dock doors, a mechanic-machine shop and backup generators, according to a virtual tour from NAI Summit. In addition, the facility is close to a couple of universities and proper distribution routes nearby.
“Today, it’s very expensive to create new cleanroom space..."Don Cunningham, CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. on attracting GfM Bremen to Bethlehem
But the building will need a new roof and some other renovations before GfM calls it home for good, Cunningham said.
“Today, it’s very expensive to create new cleanroom space, so having available cleanroom space, even with some renovation, it becomes cost-effective — which was a factor — along with the workforce that we have,” Cunningham said.
Bethlehem, a tech hub?
As Bethlehem was facing the beginning of the end of Bethlehem Steel and slowly rebuilding the local economy, then-Bethlehem Economic Development Corp., Lehigh Valley Industrial Park, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and the county teamed up to make the property into the Bethlehem Technology Center in 1993. Another technology center was later built next door.
“It was quite a moonshot for Bethlehem at that time because the economy was so based on heavy industry,” Cunningham said.
The first was eventually sold to IQE in 2007, and the other was sold to OraSure Technologies —a company working in infectious disease testing. Though the latter currently operates there, IQE — a U.K.-based global supplier of semiconductors — moved operations to another of its locations in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Property history
Due to the land’s current zoning classification, putting up apartments there would have taken some extra steps beyond buying and selling the land.
One developer came before City Council twice over the past few years with rezoning requests and plans to tear down the current facility at 119 Technology Drive and construct a six-story, 240-unit apartment building.
City Council pumped the brakes the first time around in June 2023, unanimously voting against rezoning the property that would have allowed the then-equitable owner and Lehigh Valley developer Serfass Development & Acquisitions to move forward with its plans.
Officials initially said they wished to see the property continue under a similar use as the previous tenant and echoed those sentiments during the second proposal.
Before the vote, Cunningham wrote to City Council indicating that covenants placed during prior sales of the property limit its reuse for several purposes, including residential ones. He said LVEDC was spearheading a national marketing campaign to grow the life sciences and technology sectors locally.
Serfass was back before officials with its second plan in October — this time slated for affordable housing provisions, a public-access creative space on site and more — but it didn’t get too far. At that meeting, officials planned a public hearing regarding the second rezoning request, which was scheduled for November but never happened.
