A groundbreaking was held Tuesday morning for the 1010 Apartments, at 1010 Hamilton Street in Allentown. The $25 million project is just outside the Neighborhood Improvement Zone and developer J.B. Reilly expects more to come. "It's what I'll call a transitional neighborhood from the commercial-based center of the business district to the more bucolic west end of Allentown. So that's why we're referring to it as Downtown West," Reilly says. The Downtown West district stretches from Ninth to 15th streets between Walnut and Turner streets. While breaking ground on the apartments, Reilly said City Center will invest $1 million to begin a fund for more development in that district. The 1010 Apartments will be a 125-unit, four-story building, with a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. It's expected to open in summer 2023.
Gas prices just keep going higher. In Pennsylvania, the average price for a gallon of unleaded is now $5.06, up eight cents from June 7th and a whopping $1.89 from one year ago. In the Lehigh Valley, the average price is $5.05 a gallon, up four cents from one week ago and $1.94 from June of 2021.
The Lower Macungie Township Planning Commission has approved changes to plans submitted by Wawa for a drive-thru restaurant. The facility would be just over 2000-square-feet on a vacant 1-acre site near the Movie Tavern and First Commonwealth Credit Union headquarters at the Trexler Business Center. The restaurant would only offer food, and not any gas or convenience-store items. Wawa officials say it will be only the second drive-thru location in the state.
The Palmer Township Planning Commission has green lighted a plan for four new distribution warehouses, which range from 151,000 to 210,000 square feet on 66 acres of land on the west side of Tatamy Road between Newlins Mill and Corriere roads. The planning commission also recommended approval of a proposed 30,000-square-foot senior life care facility on the south side of Corriere Road. The four-story, 131-bed facility would be located on a 4.36 acre lot at 3701 Corriere Road.
Allentown's fire and police departments will soon get some equipment upgrades because of state funding. $10,000 will be spent by the Allentown Fire Department for equipment and furnishings for their fire academy. $5000 has also been set aside for surveillance cameras at the police department's public safety building.
The latest numbers from the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors reveal a hot housing market may be starting to cool down. The organization says the silver lining with the softened sales could be that prices may be forced to come down. In May, the median home sales price in the Lehigh Valley was a record $290,000. Homes were on the market an average of 16 days.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and a lawmaker from California have introduced a measure to keep more children out of detention facilities. Casey says thousands of kids are imprisoned for acts that would not be crimes if they were committed by an adult. Those include truancy, breaking curfew or running away from home. He says the legislation could change the path of young people's lives by helping them get support when they're going through a difficult time.
Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey wants more done to protect students from educators who engage in sexual misconduct. He wants further action from the Department of Education on the matter, including preventing schools from allowing a sexually abusive educator from moving from one school to another. Toomey says sixty percent of states have failed to ban the confidentiality and resignation agreements that endanger students by allowing predators to continue as educators.
Three Republican members of the Pennsylvania House announced plans to draft articles of impeachment against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. Krasner's response? "What they're doing in terms of impeachment is clearly without a legal basis. It's is clearly unconstitutional and that will all come out as this proceeds, if it proceeds at all," Krasner said. The announcement of plans to draft articles of impeachment comes as Krasner faces continued criticism about his office’s handling of gun cases in the city plagued by gun violence and rising crime.
New Jersey is targeting children and families impacted by addiction. The state is piloting a program to train police officers and other providers to identify the need to link families to services as a result of addiction. The child trauma response initiative aims to serve children who are in a home where an adult has overdosed, has been arrested for drugs, or drugs were found in the home during a domestic incident. The two-million-dollar effort is being funded by state opioid settlements.
Fred Couples has withdrawn from next week's U.S. Senior Open at Saucon Valley Country Club. The 62-year-old was to compete in his seventh U.S. Senior Open, but pulled out Tuesday for undisclosed reasons.
Two men with ties to the Philadelphia Flyers are being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame media category. Former Flyers player and broadcaster Bill Clement will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster and longtime Philadelphia hockey writer and commentator Al Morganti is being honored with the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for excellence in hockey journalism. They'll both receive their awards this November.