ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Weeks after securing city zoning officials’ permission to expand two projects that are in the works, developer Nat Hyman is again set to put more units into one of his complexes.
Hyman earned approval Monday night from Allentown’s Zoning Hearing Board to add 17 units on the first floor of The Tribeca, at Linden Street and American Parkway. That complex already houses 86 units.
- Developer Nat Hyman is set to put more units in his Tribeca apartment complex
- Hyman plans to add 17 units on the first floor of the 86-unit complex
- The developer has earned zoning approvals to expand three of his projects this month
Zoning officials previously approved a proposal to add 14 units, which would take the building to 100 apartments, Hyman said. He earned a variance Monday to include three additional units on the first floor.
The first floor once featured a church and provided storage space, Hyman said.
“I just want to use the space, which has been vacant for quite some time,” Hyman told zoning hearing board members.
Unit-size calculations
As they did on July 11, Hyman and attorney Erich Schock successfully convinced zoning officials to consider the area of off-site parking as a component of the project.
Allentown ordinances require housing studio units and one-bedroom apartments to offer tenants at least 500 square feet.
The average unit size at the 86-apartment Tribeca is about 531 square feet, Shock said.
That drops below 500 feet when calculating the average size for each of the 103 units that are now approved; but the measure exceeds the city’s requirement “by a lot” when including off-site parking, Hyman said.
Hyman called The Tribeca his company’s “most affordable” apartment complex.
Online listings show rents for 600-square-foot, one-bathroom studio apartments start around $850 per month.
Allentown Zoning Hearing Board members earlier this month granted approvals for Hyman to put more units into two projects.
Those approvals ended the prospect of litigation.
The developer plans to put 10 more units into Washington Tower — a former silk mill and warehouse at 938 Washington St. — for a total of 46 apartments.
Hyman said he will also work to put five more units into the Cigar Factory Allentown complex in the 400 block of North 15th Street.
He had planned to turn two warehouses on the site into 69 units before flames tore through the larger structure almost four years ago. The approvals earlier this month means there will be 21 units included in the project.
Essential signs
City zoning officials also granted Hyman permission to continue hanging oversized banners from the top of the Tribeca complex.
“In an effort to maintain affordable apartments, we cut expenses where we can cut them, And one of them is we don't advertise. We rely on those banners and word of mouth to lease our units.”Developer Nat Hyman
The signs, which advertise “new apartments” and contact information for Hyman Properties, are larger than what is allowed under Allentown zoning ordinances.
But Hyman told zoning officials the non-compliant signs are “very important to us” because they are a major portion of his company’s advertising strategy.
“In an effort to maintain affordable apartments, we cut expenses where we can cut them, and one of them is we don't advertise,” Hyman said. “We rely on those banners and word of mouth to lease our units.”
Hyman said it would be “a huge problem” to take down the signs because they “generate a lot of tenant leads” for the 600 apartments his company owns within a few blocks of the Tribeca.
The developer said he agreed to take down similar signs at the Washington Tower apartment and another complex because they’re in “more isolated” areas.
Hyman can keep hanging the banners at the Tribeca for at least the next five years, Allentown zoning officials said.
