Another large building has been approved for center city Allentown, but not without some criticism of its design from a member of the Allentown Planning Commission.
Called City Center Flats, the 11-story structure will be built on the northeast corner of Eighth and Walnut streets.
A five-level apartment building, containing 200 one and two-bedroom units, will be built over a 700-space parking garage.
The structure also will include some retail shops along South Eighth Street.
The plan won unanimous final approval from the planning commission Tuesday, with one abstention.
It is just the latest approved project from City Center Investment Corp., which is transforming downtown Allentown with new buildings.
James Gentile, president of North Star Construction Management, spoke on behalf of the plan before the commission. His company designed the building and will construct it.
Although listed as an 11-story building on the planning commission agenda, Gentile told the commission City Center Flats will have five levels of apartments over five levels of parking.
He later indicated the 11th level is where Walnut Street drops down toward Seventh Street at the east end of the building.
Gentile said 150 of the 700 spaces in the parking garage will be for residents of the apartments — with the remainder for public parking.
After the meeting, Gentile predicted construction will begin in fall and will take about a year and a half to complete.
Those involved with the project declined to estimate its cost Tuesday.
No one from the public offered any opinions about the plan before it was approved.
Planning commission chairman Oldrich Foucek recused himself from the conversation and vote on the plan, saying he had probably had a conflict. He did not elaborate.
Planner criticizes design
Although he did not vote against the project, planning commission member Christian Brown criticized the design of the building’s facade.
“We’re losing the scale of the city to more and more projects like this.” said Brown. “One thing I fear is losing some of that recognition of the building blocks that put the city together years ago — that being a conglomeration of buildings.”
He continued: “The arena frontage is so homogenous and so broad that you forget it was formally 12 to 15 buildings that made that street frontage.
“Not to say we can’t have new mega-block construction like this, but I think someday we’ll look back and regret that we lost all the character from individual facades.”
Brown said the facade of City Center Flats could have a more varied appearance. “New buildings today can still kind of have that look.”
He suggested the city consider passing laws requiring future developers to incorporate a percentage from a variety of previous existing structures into such large facades.
“It’s a burden maybe, but we’re in a [NIZ] district where there is a lot of incentive and assistance to do good things,” said Brown.
“If we’re not going to retain, renovate and restore the existing buildings, at least we should try and pay some additional homage to what was there before.”
City planning director Michael Hefele said he has seen several parking structure designs that almost recreate a street facade on the front of the deck, “to give it that diversity.”
Defending the design
Gentile addressed the building’s design before Brown offered his opinion.
“Instead of it just looking like a parking deck, we tried to bring out the architecture of the current area,” he said.
He indicated that will include taking an architectural feature from an old Elks building that apparently stood on that site and incorporating it into the new building.
“And we’ll cover up the other areas with screening so you’re not just looking at a parking structure.”
Gentile maintained the developers went “above and beyond” so the building’s lower levels would not look like a parking garage — including by adding plenty of windows on the first five levels at Eighth and Walnut.
Stepped back design
Whether 10 or 11 stories tall, the approved building won’t just jut straight up from the sidewalks.
Gentile said the apartments above the parking deck are “stepped back,” both along Walnut and Eighth streets
He said the result is that the building doesn’t look as “tall and high.” He said it was designed that way based on a recommendation from the planning commission.
Retail on Hamilton, not Walnut
Gentile said there is 4,000 square feet of retail space along the Eighth Street side of the building.
There are no plans for retail space on the Walnut Street side of the building, although he said that might be a possibility for the future.
He explained the developers decided there is not yet a market for retail space along Walnut.
Ideally, the city would have liked homes along Walnut, said Hefele, the city planning director, but the developers told him there was not enough depth on the lot to accommodate homes and maintain the amount of parking they want.
Hefele said the city still would like to see retail space along Walnut so it’s not just a parking structure along that street.
Building features
One entrance to the building will be at the corner of Eighth and Walnut and another at Hall and Maple streets, two alleys on the opposite corner of the building.
Although not discussed Tuesday, that’s apparently being done to provide a short walk on Hall to Hamilton Street.
The parking deck will have one entrance/exit off Eighth, another off Walnut.
A loading area inside the building off Walnut Street will be used by people who move in and out of the apartments as well as those making deliveries to the retailers.
The apartments will have trash chutes feeding dumpsters, which also will be enclosed within the building.
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