Lehigh Valley Real Estate

Bethlehem City Council unanimously approved a $12,000 contract with the Center for Public Enterprise of Brooklyn, New York, to help with designing and implementing such a fund in Bethlehem.

Among the free food, candy and raffles was quite a spread of information available, both in English and Spanish, for families related to a major neighborhood redesign in the works.

The Gateway on Fourth, a 120-unit affordable housing project, expected to cost $29 million, just received $16 million in highly competitive tax credits awarded by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency board. It's one of two affordable housing projects out of six total applicants in the Lehigh Valley to receive the credits.

The Lehigh Valley’s position among the top three small rental markets highlights how much pressure local renters are feeling, but that’s just one side of the housing market continuing to squeeze budgets.

Those parties now will be able to call witnesses and make arguments of their own, as is the case with the original appellee, North Whitehall Township. Argument for the appeal is planned to begin at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 17 at Lehigh County Courthouse.

Two Bethlehem property owners await what’s next as developers plan to put up townhomes on adjacent lots. They’re preparing for what they say could be the worst-case scenario: losing their beloved trees and an established quality of life in the neighborhood.

Challenges for would-be homeowners in Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley are even more evident, with housing reflecting a mix of aging stock, rising values and a growing divide between homeowners and renters.

Just five months after officially being in business in their recognizable bright yellow teardrop-shaped trailer, co-owners Melinda Schneck and Josh Elmer are expending Roasties Mobile Cafe into a brick-and-mortar coffee shop. It'll take root where the couple says its heart is: Macungie.

Easton City Councilman Frank Pintabone's workforce housing ordinance passed council on Wednesday, launching a new program to promote affordable residences for those who fall in the middle income bracket.

Lehigh County officials gathered Friday to celebrate the finish of structural steel work on a new building at the county-run Cedarbrook nursing home. Officials initially hoped the building would be open by now.

The Coalition of Manufactured Home Communities of Pennsylvania held a get-together Wednesday to discuss the lot rental price jumps throughout the communities, and tell residents how they are combatting it.

Developers behind a 73-unit condo in Easton secured a land development plan approval on Wednesday, though not without plenty of discussion about parking.

Base Engineering's Drew Nyman, project manager on behalf of the applicant, said the original sketch plan presented last year was “a lot more expansive than what we’re doing now.”

Displacing 135 residents and shuttering ground-level businesses until further notice, a monstrous fire at Five10 Flats in South Bethlehem has officials left trying to pick up the pieces.

Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners will consider a request by Fellowship Community retirement community to complete its proposed expansion in three phases instead of one, as was originally proposed. The change is because of lack of funding.

Fellowship Community, an independent living community in Whitehall Township, announced expansion plans to construct three luxury apartment buildings on the 67-acre campus at Mauch Chunk Road and Schadt Avenue.

A dilapidated single-family home across from Touchstone Theatre and Parham Park may later become a three-story mixed-use structure.

Allentown City Council looks poised to move about $2.25 million in unspent federal funding to other accounts.

Pen Argyl Borough Council provided conditional use approval to a former warehouse a developer intends to turn into an apartment building.

The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency awarded seven projects in the state with grants from its Community Revitalization Fund Program. Only one project in the Lehigh Valley received money — a remediation project for the Fourth Street Building in Bethlehem.

Once pitched for 27 units, the newest project documents show 24 apartments to be built on site, with 18 one-bedroom and six two-bedroom units ranging from about 600 to 1,700 square feet.

City officials will later hear more on the vision and take a vote on the new $25 million building at 701-719 N. New St. The vote on April 1 pertained to the zoning classification of the land in question, located just a couple of blocks up from the action on Main Street.

Allentown planning officials granted a one-year extension to Cortex Residential as it awaits state funding for its project.

Lower Macungie's Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to buy 44 acres of farmland on Lower Macungie Rd. Township officials previously approved a 30-building, 180-unit apartment complex on the site.