Dive Brief:
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Pennsylvania developer City Center Investment Corp. has proposed a $250 million mixed-use campus for Allentown, PA, that will feature the tallest building outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, according to Commercial Property Executive.
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The focal point of the three-building Five City Center development will be the 442,000-square-foot, 24-story Innovation Tower office high-rise. The complex will also include two residential buildings — a 12-story, 168,000-square-foot tower with 155 apartments and a 75,000-square-foot, four-story low-rise with 75 rental units.
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The Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority, which is currently reviewing the plans, is expected to make a decision by the end of this month. City Center Development has also said it will invest $1 billion in the Allentown area by 2022, according to the Morning Call.
Dive Insight:
Like many of its counterparts in other areas of the country, the Five City Center hopes to capitalize on the development's location — close to hotels, restaurants, retail, cultural activities schools and mass transit — to draw office tenants and renters.
The most recent addition to that list, aside from the Allentown development, is a $1 billion mixed-use project that just got underway in Washington, DC. Developers are utilizing 66 acres of the historic Walter Reed medical campus and converting it into The Parks at Walter Reed. The project will include 2,100 residential units, both for-sale and for-rent; up to 250,000 square feet of retail space; 185,000 square feet of office space; a hotel and conference center; art and cultural space; and two language immersion charter schools.
DC also has another mixed-use project in progress with The Wharf, a $2 billion waterfront development that will feature the city's first pier-top office building, Pier 4.
Also in the proposal stage is a $225 million mixed-use complex in St. Paul, MN. Arizona developer Cardon Development Group wants to construct a three-building, riverfront campus with a hotel, retail, apartments and office space on the former site of jail and other businesses.
Perhaps on the same type of revitalization mission as Allentown is Columbus, OH, which approved a $500 million downtown mixed-use complex on a site it had been trying to develop for more than 100 years. The Columbus Downtown Development Corp. is now negotiating with developers to execute its plan for the 3.1-million-square-foot project.