Allentown's Johnny Ma ana's is on the block

[Anonymous]

LookingToEscape wrote:

<quoted text>
If need be, pull money from other departments and start a program of reducing housing density...Reducing density and creating open spaces within the city will make the remaining housing stock more attractive to higher income individuals...Once you start attracting more home owners and higher income individuals, private investment will do the rest.

Instead of trying to give away homes to lower income people, why not offer grants to people willing to de-convert rental properties or rehab homes in poor condition.

These grants should be limited to people who would live there for an extended number of years and only be given to people earning $xxx-amount ABOVE the average city income.

That would fix problem properties, reduce housing density and add residents with disposable income to the targeted neighborhood.

[rob]

Clean Up The Mall wrote:

Allentown better think up ways to make center city more appealing quickly, or the city will continue to sink into perpdom.

a giant bomb would work

[Anonymous]

Clean Up The Mall wrote:

I hope Mayor Pawlowski really reads these posts, cause they got to do something to make the Hamilton Street mall look more appealing. Every store looks different, and many just look plain trashy. If you want money to come, you got to make things look nice, like in Bethlehem center city. Allentown better think up ways to make center city more appealing quickly, or the city will continue to sink into perpdom.

The problem is that the Mayor in Allentown is desperate to give the ILLUSION of success.

In Bethlehem they stuck to the historic theme over many years and it has paid off. Instead of following that example, Allentown City Hall is willing to accept anything that comes along so they can trumpet it in their next press release.

The Mayor still does not have a clear vision of what he wants downtown to become, despite hiring a managing director so the Mayor could focus on the "big picture". This is proven by citizens recently being given "vision meetings" on what they want downtown to be.

You would think that with Pawlowski's almost 3 years as mayor and 4 years as CED director, he would know. But he doesn't.

[Herman]

It sounds like Johnny's has more problems than just the Allentown location- and it's typical of the leadership in the city to roll out the red carpet and give sweetheart deals to untested, unproven upstarts.

Who wants Mexican food anyway? Yuck.

[mohammed from god]

radical islam is the only way to save allentown.
start chopping off the heads of drug dealers and the hands of thieves, and allentown will turn around that quick.
it's in the koran, people!!!

[WTF]

I ate there once. The food was decent but pricy.

Hamilton Street is a dump. No one I know wants to shop at ghetto stores or crappy dollar stores with the ceiling literally falling down.

Allentown has the right idea about trying to bring in some higher end shops/resturants. Allentown's "downtown" will never improve unless they can attract the middle class to spend some money.

[Wow]

I am white with money and will never go to allentown to spend it. too much crime and spanish people

[atowner]

The food is rancid. Very poorly selected management team.

[Satire]

How do you think Im going to get along,
Without you, when youre gone
You took me for everything that I had,
And kicked me out on my own

Are you happy, are you satisfied
How long can you stand the heat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat

Chorus

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him
You can cheat him
You can treat him bad and leave him
etc.
etc

[FactIs]

Anonymous wrote:

<quoted text>
Instead of trying to give away homes to lower income people, why not offer grants to people willing to de-convert rental properties or rehab homes in poor condition.
These grants should be limited to people who would live there for an extended number of years and only be given to people earning $xxx-amount ABOVE the average city income.
That would fix problem properties, reduce housing density and add residents with disposable income to the targeted neighborhood.

Dittos.. your 100%! Good Post!

[rust belt]

says a lot that people who worked in same building didn't give the place much business.

[CARSASM]

Terrible, terrible plan no matter how many billions in deals you've done.

"Expand via merger"? How about cut back until operationally sound? Why take Allentown's gross mismanagement and spread it to the suburbs?

Keep doing your deals (congrats on your success, btw) and stay out of government, please.

Just a quick question: If you LOST money and scared away investors, do you think you would have made a good case for an expansion of your business via merger?

comment wrote:

<quoted text>
You can not have homeowners who can afford $100,000 to $200,000 homes unless then have incomes high enough to support home ownership. You have to tackle the macroeconomic issues of why Allentown has lost jobs to the suburbs for the past 30 years, before there will be a mass migration back into the city.
This is part of reason why Allentown must expand via merger. The process of reversing 30 years of mismanagement and a small city saddled with debt and high operational cost structure is a slow repositioning.

[Stop Eds Lackys]

Well at least Tom Williams will not be able to buy this liquour license because of it being special KOZ license. Did anyone here he is being questioned by the FBI and PLCB for Anti-Trust violations?

[wonder who]

Stop Eds Lackys wrote:

Well at least Tom Williams will not be able to buy this liquour license because of it being special KOZ license. Did anyone here he is being questioned by the FBI and PLCB for Anti-Trust violations?

he is a cheat and a fraud
karma will get him

[HowardSperm SOB]

Stop working so hard or we'll have to replace you with an illegal alien without computer skills.

rob wrote:

<quoted text>
hey look, everyone, another mental midget who automatically assumes I'm posting from San Francisco, rather than from Bethlehem using a remote server where my company's network is located.

[davis1z]

Stick with the House of Chen, a proven winner.

[abe cyclist]

The business was a joke. Four years to open...... less than a year to close...

[Joe]

Anonymous wrote:

<quoted text>
Instead of trying to give away homes to lower income people, why not offer grants to people willing to de-convert rental properties or rehab homes in poor condition.
These grants should be limited to people who would live there for an extended number of years and only be given to people earning $xxx-amount ABOVE the average city income.
That would fix problem properties, reduce housing density and add residents with disposable income to the targeted neighborhood.

All these ideas exist. People in the Lehigh valley would rather moan and assign blame than take advantage of them and help move our city forward.

The low-income homeownership programs are heavily used but I think they turn out to be more of a burden on the city then anything else.

[rob]

Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
All these ideas exist. People in the Lehigh valley would rather moan and assign blame than take advantage of them and help move our city forward.

that's funny.'people in the lehigh valley'----'our city'

I'm quite content to stay in my north side Bethlehem apartment and not take advantage of any program 'your city' has to offer to help me get a house there. I'll keep my distance.

[Special Eds twisted logic]

What happened to Special Ed and Fast Eddie's plan? They moved the Penndot building to downtown allentown at a cost of MILLIONS of dollars to the taxpayers. They did this because they thought moving 200 employees downtown would revitalize it.(There were already 1,000 PPL employees down there, and if they weren't making things go, what would 200 more do?)

The result? Since the Penndot building moved downtown more businesses have CLOSED than opened AND you the taxpayers lose again.