Planners hope to draw visitors into Bethlehem’s Eastern Gateway with traffic calming measures, art installations and signs.
This afternoon, the RBA Group presented its ideas about the future of the neighborhood near East Fourth and Williams streets as well as the roads that lead into it.
With the opening of the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VII and the development of the South Bethlehem Greenway and the city skateplaza, the area has grown in importance.
“How can we connect all of that to this neighborhood?” City Director of Planning and Zoning Darlene Heller asked.
The city and the Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem have been working for some time on the community, Heller said. In 2011, Bethlehem completed a $50,000 gateway, redevelopment and enhancement plan for the area that was the springboard for the new plans.
And now Bethlehem has $450,000 in federal grant money to continue studying improvements. RBA was tasked with studying pedestrian improvements in the gateway as well as development opportunities. The city has money earmarked to build a gathering area around the skateplaza that includes a concession stand, restrooms and a shaded seating area.
Tom Fein, of RBA, unveiled plans for the area that call for a shade canopy with a corrugated metal overhang. The plan calls for a concession stand and restrooms made out of refurbished containers. Fein called it a very green reuse.
Plans call for street lights with banners as well as pedestrian lights along Route 412 and a large canopy of shade trees surrounding the road. The light design will match existing lights along the greenway.
RBA’s Jackson Wandres explained the trees will help slow traffic as drivers feel they make the road narrower.
Read more.