An apartment in the Terrain on the Parkway. PHOTO/SUBMITTED –
Terrain on the Parkway, Allentown’s newest apartment community, which was recently constructed at 1625 Lehigh Parkway East, welcomed its first residents last week.
Developed by Scully Company and Serfass Construction, the community features 160 apartments.
“We are immensely proud to bring our vision to life on schedule, despite unprecedented supply chain challenges. We’ve received a lot of interest from the community and are excited to welcome our first residents,” said Kevin Serfass, vice president of Serfass Construction.
The apartments feature studio, one, two, and three-bedroom units.
Apartments range in size from 631 square feet to over 1,300 square feet. Rents begin at around $1,575 for studios, and three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments start at $2,450.
“Allentown has become a hub for people working in so many surrounding metros, but until now, the only option to live in a newly developed building with high-end finishes was in the center of Allentown or surrounding suburbs. Location is everything, and this development offers the best of both worlds – a scenic retreat just minutes from downtown Allentown,” explains Jessica Scully, President of Scully Company.
Rendering of planned LANtaVan headquarters. IMAGE/SERFASS CONSTRUCTION
The Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority (LANTA) is getting a new home for its paratransit operations.
Serfass Construction and Development will break ground this spring on a new 67,000-square-foot facility at 1501 S. 12th St. in Allentown.
The company will design build and own the building.
“We are excited about the long-term partnership with LANTA. LANTA provides one of the most important essential services to the community, and we are thrilled to play a small role in their mission.” Said Matthias Fenstermacher, vice president of Serfass Construction.
All of LANTA’s paratransit operations will be run at the new location when it opens in early 2022.
The facility will have administrative offices, dispatch, a maintenance bay, wash bay and vehicle staging all onsite.
In a press release, LANTA said the site was chosen for its easy access to major roadways and its proximity to the authority’s current headquarters.
The authority feels the new space will help it more efficiently serve its consumers in Lehigh and Northampton counties.
“We are looking forward to moving into this new home for our LANtaVan division and our partnership with Serfass. This modern, state of the art facility will provide various operational benefits for the region’s paratransit system,” said Owen O’Neil, executive director of LANTA.
The paratransit division, LANtaVan, offers door-to-door mobility services to seniors and people with disabilities.
LANtaVan has a fleet of 85 paratransit vans with daily service.
Prior to COVID 19, LANTA said it would typically provide over 400,000 passenger trips per year.
A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for later this month on a new apartment complex in the Lehigh Parkway in Allentown.
Serfass Construction of North Whitehall Township and the Scully Co. of Jenkintown are partnering on the project to build two five-story buildings at 1649 Lehigh Parkway East, just north of the Regency Apartments off of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
It will have 160 units with a mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units.
The apartment buildings will feature a fitness center. There will also be a clubroom with a coffee bar and table games, a bike room, a pet washing and grooming station and an outdoor fire pit.
Rent will range from around $1,300 to around $2,200 per month.
Kevin Serfass of Serfass Construction said they were attracted to the spot because of its location within the Lehigh Parkway. He noted the property will provide views of the Little Lehigh Creek and easy access to hiking and biking as well as the city’s Frisbee golf course, which the apartments will be near.
He said the building they are constructing was designed by its architectural firm, Bonsall Shafferman, to fit into the setting.
“The overall construction is made to feel more like the natural setting around it so it will seem like it was always part of the park,” he said.
Jessica Scully of the Scully Co. noted that much of the new apartment buildings going up in the Allentown area are all in the city center area. This property gives their future tenants the option of living in a greener part of the city while still being very close to the restaurants and other amenities of the downtown.
“There’s a lot of great new product but all of it is in the downtown. Here you can just jump in your car and be downtown in minutes, but you have hiking and biking,” she said.
The Lehigh Parkway East apartments project is the first project the two companies are partnering on, but both said they hope to partner on more, similar projects in the region.
“We have a lot in common,” Serfass said. Both companies are third-generation, family-owned businesses with a similar culture.
With Serfass focusing on design build and Scully Co. focusing on apartment management, the partnership seems like a good fit, Scully said.
“We really clicked. They filled in that variable, that piece we needed that was so important,” she said.
The groundbreaking ceremony will be held Nov. 19 at the site.
Somera Road Inc. of New York City has selected a construction firm for the renovation of Allentown’s Grand Plaza on Hamilton Street, which includes renovating the outdoor plaza. (Submitted) –
Now that Somera Road Inc. of New York City has selected a construction firm for the renovation of Allentown’s Grand Plaza on Hamilton Street, the developer is eyeing a June completion.
Basel Bataineh, vice president of Somera Road said the company chose Serfass Construction, a local firm to perform the construction and renovation work for the project, which includes creating an eight-vendor food hall within the retail space and renovating the interior floors for Class-A office space.
The project got a “thumbs up” from the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority’s project review committee on Thursday, which is step one in the process, Bataineh said. That committee will make a recommendation to the full board, he added.
The next step is for Somera to submit additional application information to the ANIZDA board. In addition, Somera will borrow $17.5 million through ANIZDA to help fund the project.
Most of the money will go toward the renovation and interior fit-outs for office spaces tenants will lease and a smaller portion will go toward renovations to the existing plaza and lobby, he said.
“The objective is to finish before the Blues Brews and Barbecue Festival,” Bataineh said.
The outdoor festival, scheduled for June 13, attracts thousands to the downtown.
“The last thing we want is a large construction site during the festival,” Bataineh said. “We’d like to be completely finished before the date of the festival.”
Aside from Serfass, Somera is working with ESa, an architectural firm based in Nashville, and Hawkins Partners Inc., a landscape architect also based in Nashville.
“They’ve worked on really high profile landscape projects,” Bataineh said. “They are going to redesign the exterior plaza.”
The building has about 240,000 square feet available. The building was in foreclosure when Somera bought it last April.
“We’ve had a lot of leasing interest in the market, both from tenants in the area and tenants outside the area,” Bataineh said.
The company invests in and redevelops properties around the country that have either been abandoned or blighted and puts them back to active reuse, he said.
“We love to take a building that was once a symbol of hope that has fallen on some tough times over the past few years and breathe some life into it and add some jobs,” Bataineh said.
Built in 2002, the building, formerly known as PPL Plaza, is in the Neighborhood Improvement Zone, a tax incentive that spurred more than $1 billion in construction and renovation in downtown Allentown.
Matthias Fenstermacher, vice president of Serfass Construction of North Whitehall Township, said the firm hopes to break ground and start construction in March.
“The current drawings call for demolition of the entire plaza and converting that back into green space, a flexible space,” Fenstermacher said.
The firm will also work on renovations to the entrance and interior fit-outs as they come up, he said.
Serfass will have about 20 to 30 employees working on the construction at any given time, he said.
In 2018, Serfass Construction completed another downtown Allentown project, 520 Lofts, a six-story building on Hamilton Street that included 68 upscale apartments.
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