Along the Lehigh River in Allentown, The Waterfront is taking shape as a single, walkable district where people can live, work, and spend their free time without leaving the riverbank. The plan from Jaindl Properties brings homes, Class A offices, retail, dining, and open space together on a 29-acre former steel site, organized around the water rather than around the car.
The idea behind a mixed-use district is straightforward. When daily needs are within a short walk, a place stays active throughout the day and into the evening. Offices fill in the morning, the River Walk fills at lunch, restaurants fill at night, and residents are part of all three. Proximity is the amenity.
Work anchors the district. 615 Waterfront is a six-story Class A office building of roughly 120,000 square feet, with about 100,000 square feet of office space above ground-floor retail and restaurant space. Businesses here sit within Allentown’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ), the 2012 state program that has helped draw more than $1 billion in new investment to downtown and allows a riverfront site to offer Class A space at a competitive cost.
Home is the other anchor. River House, at 30 East Allen Street, is a 201-unit building of studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms with ground-floor retail, on-site parking, and resident amenities. It faces the Lehigh River directly, so the water is part of the address, not a view down the block.
Between work and home runs the River Walk, the trail that follows the river’s edge through the district. It connects to a wider regional network: Jaindl donated the Allentown land for a riverside corridor, and a $21.1 million federal RAISE grant awarded in 2021 is funding a road-and-trail link that closes a gap in the 165-mile Delaware and Lehigh (D&L) Trail.
The district is being built in phases. The first phase carried the heaviest lift: environmental cleanup of the old steel grounds, new infrastructure, and the first office and residential buildings. Later phases will add homes, commercial space, and public green space, each one extending the same plan rather than starting a new one.
Dining will give the district a center of gravity. Nowa, a Mediterranean-American restaurant led by Chef Tyler Baxter, is opening at The Waterfront with river views from nearly every seat. A restaurant on the water gives residents, office tenants, and visitors one more reason to stay past five o’clock.
The model is proven elsewhere. Austin reknit a former airport into the Mueller district, and Boston rebuilt its Seaport into a dense mixed-use waterfront. The Waterfront applies the same thinking to the Lehigh, with the river as the organizing feature and the site’s history kept in view.
See how it fits together. Tour the Offices, then walk the River Walk down to River House. Schedule a visit.