The Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development is awarding the city of Allentown an $85,000 grant for the completion of a master plan for the development of Allentown Central Park.\u00a0 The funding comes from the department\u2019s Greenways, Trails and Recreation program through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth Financing Authority.<\/p>\n
The master plan will look at 28 acres of brownfields on the site of the former city incinerator on MLK Drive with a goal of developing a combination park, city and regional trail hub and light industrial business.\u00a0 Seven acres of the site are considered developable.\u00a0 The plan will implement the Auburn Cross Hills trail hub that will ultimately link to every trail network in the city, including the Delaware & Lehigh Heritage Trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project is a huge win-win for the city, said Mayor Ed Pawlowski.\u00a0 \u201cCompletion of the Auburn Cross Trails hub will link MLK Trail, Lehigh Parkway, Jordan Creek Greenway Trail, Trout Creek Greenway and the D&L Heritage Corridor.\u00a0 An industrial park with rail service will create jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Department of Parks & Recreation Director Lindsay Taylor is also elated.\u00a0 \u201cI am very excited at the prospect of the city\u2019s creating a plan for Allentown\u2019s own \u201cCentral Park,\u201d a park and trail hub that will link to downtown and provide the type of recreational facilities that will encourage people choosing to move to the downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
A site analysis will be conducted to identify the property\u2019s physical attributes and limitations before developing a creative, conceptual plan that will consider the public\u2019s input and the city\u2019s economic development goals, ultimately resulting in a plan for the property that will transform it into an industrial park surrounded by beautiful parkland and a regional trail hub.<\/p>\n
The proposed master plan is consistent with Allentown Comprehensive Plan 2020, the 2006 Allentown Parks & Recreation Plan, the 2012 \u201cConnecting Our Community\u201d Trail Network Plan and the City of Allentown Re-Industrialization Plan \u2013 Phase II Little Lehigh Corridor.\u00a0 The 2012 \u201cConnecting Our Community\u201d Trail Network Plan found development of the Auburn Cross Trails Park on the former incinerator property key to the implementation of the city-wide trail network.<\/p>\n
Phase II Environmental Assessment and Site Assessment Reports have been completed and remediation and clean-up plans will soon follow, separate from this project.\u00a0 The multi-use development will seek a creative solution at the main issue that has hindered development of the site for so long, that of vehicular access to the site.<\/p>\n
Work on the master plan is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2017.<\/p>\n
Information provided by: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nMike Moore
\nCommunications Manager
\nMayor’s Office
\n435 Hamilton Street
\nAllentown, PA 18101
\nMike.Moore@allentownpa.gov
\nhttp:\/\/www.AllentownPA.gov<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"… Click here to read more... <\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,5719,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-parkland","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Allentown-City.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}