Allentown housing, commercial development plans grew significantly in 2025, report says

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — City planning officials oversaw a significant uptick in development proposals last year.

Allentown Planning Commission reviewed development proposals that included more than 1,300 total residential units, a 58% jump from 2024, according to the commission’s annual report to City Council.

And members evaluated plans that proposed almost 900,000 square feet of non-residential space throughout the city.

That represents a jump of almost 180% since the prior year, the report states.

The commission’s activity was up “across nearly every measure,” according to the report.

“There were more applications overall, a greater number of major projects, higher total unit counts and a substantially larger percentage increase in non-residential development," the report states.

Shrinking the shortage?

The planning commission last year approved eight projects that are projected to bring more than 850 housing units.

Among those were plans for a 16-story mixed-use complex at the former American Atelier furniture factory buildings along North Front Street.

It’s expected to feature 267 apartment units, more than 21,000 square feet of office space and a similar amount of retail/commercial space.

City Center Group, Allentown’s most prominent developer, is set to bring 257 apartments to the former site of The Morning Call in the 100 block of North Turner Street.

Planning officials last year approved two other large-scale housing projects.

Manny Makhoul is working to add 180 apartments across seven buildings on an East Side property where he played as a kid, and a developer plans to add 50 apartments above The Literacy Center on Hamilton Street.

Opening all of the units approved last year would make a sizable dent in the city’s housing shortage but not erase it, according to local statistics.

Allentown’s housing shortage sits at more than 1,900 units, according to Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

Without intervention, that shortage is projected to swell to about 5,300 over the next 25 years.

Lehigh County’s housing shortage in 2025 is about 5,000 units, a figure that’s set to triple by 2050, according to LVPC statistics.

Allentown’s housing plan identifies a “dire shortage of rental housing” and a “severe” shortage of homes for sale as a major driving force behind a rapid rise in costs.

The planning commission in its first two meetings of 2026 has reviewed three large housing proposals that could add more than 100 new apartments to the city.