ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Officials running a special taxing district that’s brought more than $1 billion in development to the city are looking to change the district’s borders again.
Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority, which oversees the NIZ, learned Wednesday that plans that would have changed the taxing district's borders did not pan out.
The body in September 2021 voted to move almost 4 acres in Bucky Boyle Park out of the NIZ.
It sought to transfer NIZ benefits to an equally sized plot on North Front Street, adjacent to the America on Wheels Museum, where ANIZDA holds its public meetings.
Charles Street Capital presented plans to build a small-scale business park featuring a 30,000-square-foot light industrial building alongside a 35,000-square-foot retail and commercial space.
ANIZDA members approved a measure to transfer the NIZ designation to the Front Street property, which would’ve given it access to tax-related benefits available nowhere else in Pennsylvania.
“Therefore, the parcels are not in the NIZ.”ANIZDA Executive Director Steve Bamford
The Neighborhood Improvement Zone was established by state lawmakers in 2009 as a special taxing district.
It's meant to incentivize developers to invest in downtown Allentown by letting them use state and local taxes to pay down bank loans or bonds they used to fund their projects.
But the developer did not meet ANIZDA’s conditions to complete the parcel swap, Executive Director Steve Bamford told board members during the body’s meeting Wednesday in the museum’s HubCap Cafe.
Charles Street Capital was required to apply by spring 2022 for financing from ANIZDA and secure permits and finalize other agreements by fall of that year. It did neither.
“Therefore, the parcels are not in the NIZ,” Bamford said, confirming NIZ benefits never transferred to the property of the proposed development.
That means a large portion of the NIZ remains in Bucky Boyle Park, where development is all but banned.
Untapped acreage
State lawmakers in 2009 approved legislation that authorized municipalities to create neighborhood improvement zones, though Allentown was and remains the only city in the state that met its qualifications.
The legislation lets a NIZ cover up to 130 acres, but it does not specify the exact location of that zone.
Allentown’s NIZ covers about 128 acres in Center City and along the western bank of the Lehigh River. It has generated more than $1 billion in redevelopment activity since its inception.
Much of Bucky Boyle Park remains within NIZ boundaries after Charles Street Capital’s project floundered. That means ANIZDA members could return to transfer out park land to support more development.Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone
NIZ funding has supported the $180 million PPL Center, the $61.5 million 615 Waterfront complex and numerous projects by City Center, downtown’s most prominent developer and the main beneficiary of the zone’s taxing incentives.
Most tax revenues generated within the NIZ are funneled back to developers, but Allentown School District still benefits from property taxes.
ANIZDA members have approved a handful of parcel swaps to change the boundaries of the NIZ by swapping Bucky Boyle Park land for productive plots, according to Bamford.
Some of those transfers enabled ANIZDA to pay for public improvements, such as new sidewalks and crosswalks, he said.
Another swap supported the development of the Allentown Transportation Center on North Sixth Street.
The body also in September 2021 approved the swap of quarter-acre parcels in Bucky Boyle Park and downtown Allentown to support the construction of the new Da Vinci Science Center.
But much of the park remains within NIZ boundaries after Charles Street Capital’s project floundered. That means ANIZDA members could return to transfer out park land to support more development.
