The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development has once again awarded a 5-year Enterprise Zone Designation to the City of Bethlehem.
The designation qualifies Bethlehem as a “distressed area” under the Neighborhood Assistance Program.
Bethlehem has been receiving the designation from the state since the mid-1980s. It is one of five Enterprise Zones in the state.
The Enterprise Zone designation helps to encourage investment in blighted, vacant, and underutilized properties within Bethlehem.
The designation comes through the Keystone Communities program and gives the city priority consideration under many of the state’s DECD programs.
It also gives the city access to the Enterprise Tax Credit Program, which Asher Schiavone, Bethlehem economic development coordinator said has been extremely helpful with economic development projects in the city.
Since 2015, there have been eight EZ Tax Credits approved for a total of $2.15M.
Projects funded through the tax credit program include work on the Flat Iron Building, the Gateway Building and The Factory.
The designation also gives businesses increased access to financing by lending institutions on mutually advantageous terms.
Eligible businesses located within the zone receive priority consideration when bidding on state government contracts, when applying for financial assistance to clean up contaminated sites under Act II and for any state resources that would assist in leveraging business investment and job creation in the Enterprise Zone.
OraSure CEO Stephen Tang, left, speaks with Don Cunningham, president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. (Photo submitted) –
The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. honored Bethlehem-based OraSure Technologies for its contributions to the life sciences industry and growth as a company that produces medical diagnostic tests.
The event took place at LVEDC’s fifth annual fall signature event Wednesday at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.
At the event, OraSure CEO Stephen Tang spoke with Don Cunningham, president and CEO of LVEDC, about the growth potential of the industry. In addition, Tang spoke about OraSure’s role as a center for life sciences research and manufacturing and how the Lehigh Valley supported those efforts.
“OraSure is improving health and wellness for people around the world by providing access to accurate, essential personal health information,” Tang said in a news release. “Our business requires employees with a wide range of skills, from manufacturing equipment operators to Ph.D.-level scientists. To recruit successfully, we need an environment where talented people want to locate.”
That environment is the Lehigh Valley, which he said, offers the location and quality of life employees want.
“Lehigh Valley is becoming a microcosm of an innovation hub,” Tang said.
With its established companies, growing startups, and numerous universities and colleges that provide access to talented employees and forums for sharing ideas, the Lehigh Valley can press its advantage, Tang said, by extending connections with surrounding areas that are hubs for talented life sciences employees.
Cunningham said life sciences research and manufacturing are a target industry sector for LVEDC recruitment initiatives and the valley is at the heart of one of the largest concentrations of life sciences workers in the nation.
In Lehigh and Northampton counties, life sciences companies such as OraSure provide more than 6,000 jobs.
In the last five years, employment in the sector grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent, he said.
In the Lehigh Valley, employment in the sector could grow at a rate of 0.5 percent per year for the next five years, according to LVEDC.
LVEDC’s fall event spotlights a company in one of the region’s targeted industry sectors, such as high-performance manufacturing, life sciences research and manufacturing, food and beverage processing, and high-value business services.
Those who follow their passions in their careers stand a good chance not only of becoming successful but of enjoying what they do every day.
A case in point is Miriam Huertas, senior vice president for the Allentown Chamber of Commerce.
Miriam Huertas serves as the senior vice president for the Allentown Chamber of Commerce. (Submitted) –
She has been living and working in Allentown for more than 40 years and still feels a sense of enthusiasm for her career and pride in the city.
In her leadership role, Huertas is committed to reaching out to all business people in the city, from established, long-term business owners to fresh up-and-comers.
“I live here, so I think that it’s not only a passion of mine but it’s something I am deeply committed to…the success of Allentown for everybody,” Huertas said. “I do love this city. I want to see it be as great as it can be. I care about the people here, all the people.”
Born in Puerto Rico, Huertas came to America in 1962. Not knowing the English language was cumbersome, she remembered, but coming from a big family helped. She has six sisters and two brothers.
In 1973, when Huertas was still an 18-year-old student in the Bethlehem school district, she began working at PPL in Allentown and moved to the city that same year.
“I went to school at night and got a degree,” Huertas said. “I knew I needed a higher education.”
Her degree was in industrial psychology from Moravian College in Bethlehem, which led to a job at PPL as an economic development director. She went on to become director of planning and economic development in Easton before joining the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce in 2007.
Huertas said she was going to work for a firm in San Diego until she got a call from Tony Iannelli, president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.
“The rest is history,” she said.
Though her job is supporting the business community, Huertas said she also feels she is good at being a voice for that community.
“Being open-minded and being able to approach people is important,” Huertas said.
Huertas has two staff people at the chamber and leads two boards – the Allentown Chamber and the Downtown Allentown Business Alliance.
She said she has a feel for what people really need and stays involved with helping the community. Allentown’s annual Blues, Brews & Barbeque festival is an example of a chamber initiative that brings the whole community together and has a direct business development component. The event, which brings about 20,000 people to downtown Allentown, is now in its 12th year. The Chamber and the city’s Downtown Allentown Business Alliance have led the festival for five years, she said.
“I always tried to incorporate music into what I do because I think music is a really good uniter,” Huertas said.
She admits to being a leader who won’t ask anyone to do any more than she’s willing to do herself.
“I think I’m very engaged and really stay focused,” Huertas. “I was the first person to graduate from college in my family. I have this internal drive. I don’t know when I am going to stop but I don’t think it’s anytime soon.”
While the business community is at the forefront of that focus, Huertas also sees the need to bring education to the table to identify future leaders and members of the workforce. Right now, she and others on her boards are working with the Allentown school district’s superintendent to see what those needs are.
She also wrote a proposal for a Lehigh University fellow, a yearlong program that would allow a graduate student to work with smaller, often-overlooked independent business owners in the city.
“These are people in the background and there’s a real need,” Huertas said. “Why aren’t we better connected to these people?”
Huertas hopes to develop programs that would benefit them and help them be successful. She wants to find out more about who they are, what they do and how they do it.
It’s about bringing more people into the fold and being more inclusive, she added.
“I think at the end of the day we have to step up to the plate,” Huertas said. “We all want to do the right things in life.”
And how does one find that passion and put it to work?
“Pick something that you really love. If you love something, it’s not really work,” she said.
Expecting a record year for lending and more growth, the Lancaster-based Community First Fund has been adding staff and restructuring its executive team.
The nonprofit economic development organization recently hired Michael Carper, the former CEO of the Housing Development Corp. MidAtlantic, to be its chief credit officer.
Community First Fund also contracted with a finance expert from Chicago to serve as CFO until it hires someone to the post full-time.
“We’re adding and growing dramatically,” said Dan Betancourt, the organization’s president and CEO.
Community First Fund provides financing for small businesses, affordable housing projects and nonprofit organizations located in low-income communities and serving disadvantaged groups, including Latino and African-American entrepreneurs.
And the need for services is rising.
The organization, which started out serving Lancaster, now covers 15 counties in Central Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley and suburban Philadelphia. Its staff has grown from 20 to 40 over the past five years and it is making more direct loans to businesses, with volume rising from about $10 million to $30 million in the past three years.
The nonprofit also has opened new loan offices in Allentown and Philadelphia where it would like to add more people to expand lending.
“We expect to go deeper into markets we are in,” Betancourt said.
But depth, he said, requires a bigger team. That starts at the executive level.
In addition to adding new execs, the nonprofit has made some internal promotions.
COO Joan Brodhead was recently named senior executive vice president and chief strategic initiatives officer, while senior vice president of lending James Buerger was elevated to executive vice president and chief lending officer.
Community First also has hired staff to work under each of the C-suite executives.
Opportunity knocking
The growth comes at a time when Community First has been positioning itself as a go-to resource for investors and developers interested in the federal opportunity zone program, in which investors can get a tax break on capital gains by investing in projects in qualified distressed areas, dubbed opportunity zones.
The investments typically will flow through what are known as qualified opportunity funds. Community First has been working to develop such funds, which could work in combination with other state and federal incentives.
Among the most notable of those is the New Markets Tax Credit program, a federal tax credit program operated by the U.S. Treasury Department that helps support large urban redevelopment projects.
Community First did not get any credits this year but hopes its clients still can take advantage of the incentives.
“We plan to work with clients and try to help them find an allocation through another organization,” Betancourt said.
And it has snagged other kinds of funding. Community First recently received a $1.5 million federal grant from the Treasury’s Capital Magnet Fund, a grant program that helps finance low-income housing projects.
Betancourt said the plan is to use that grant as seed capital in the form of low-interest loans to support developers who receive Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Authority in Harrisburg.
Community First, meanwhile, will kick in $4.5 million of its own funds, bumping the total to $6 million. Betancourt said he hopes to be able to help finance about 400 affordable housing units across the organization’s footprint.
Community First also has rolled out an online application for small businesses looking for loans. Betancourt said this will help the organization process applications more quickly and at a higher volume, hopefully steering some small businesses away from predatory online lenders that charge higher interest rates and fees.
Community First is looking to cut a 60-day application process down to about 30 to 45 days, Betancourt said.
“I think we will be able to work with more clients,” he said.
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