ARTICLE
By Evan Jones - The Morning Call
It’s not a secret that the Lehigh Valley is growing. But even officials are surprised at the pace people are moving into the region.
The combined population of Lehigh and Northampton counties has already surpassed 700,000 people, including 7,000 new residents last year, according to Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
Speaking at the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Real Estate Outlook on Thursday at Wind Creek Bethlehem, Bradley said the Valley previously averaged about 4,000 new people per year. About 21,000 moved in 2020-24.
People attend the Lehigh Valley Real Estate Outlook presentation Thursday, April 24, 2025, at the Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem. Hosted by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, the event brought together industry leaders, investors and real estate professionals to discuss the region’s housing and commercial property markets.(Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
“Think about that,” Bradley told the full ballroom. “In a market where housing inventory was historically low, we still added 7,000 people. We now have 708,000 people. That makes it even more important to develop a housing strategy that can better manage this growth so that we don’t lose the very things that make us special.”
Bradley reviewed why housing is so hard to obtain, but the audience also heard from developers about significant projects coming online, and ways to promote the Lehigh Valley.
Here are four things to know from the chamber’s annual event:
Bradley said the Lehigh Valley is still on pace to add at least 100,000 people by 2050. The problem is finding them a place to live.
Housing is still at an historic low, she said, with a shortage of 9,000 units in the region. In 25 years, there will need to be at least 54,000 units to keep pa
“That makes it even more important to develop a housing strategy that can better manage this growth so that we don’t lose the very things that make us special,” Bradley said. “Nearly a decade of suppressed housing construction after the 2008 housing crash combined with a consistently growing population and now we’re growing even faster.”
There’s also a mismatch between income and available housing. With the increased competition, it’s harder for families to afford homes, she said. While younger couples are being kept out of the housing market, older couples looking to downsize are staying put because they can’t afford to downsize. That keeps potential starter homes off the market.
And while many of the homes for sale could be considered affordable, many are being sold to upper-class buyers finding a lack of larger homes in the Valley, thus creating downward pressure.
The rising costs of buying a house also leave many behind.
“Housing affordability has changed dramatically since the 1980s and housing prices have outpaced income growth with median income, with median home prices now exceeding four times the median household income,” Bradley said.
In a taping of the “Business Matters” TV show, chamber President and CEO Tony Iannelli asked three Valley developers for updates on some of their more notable projects.
Nicholas Dye, of D&D Realty Group, gave an update on the 24-story PPL Building project at Ninth and Hamilton streets in downtown Allentown. He said the company is still on track to convert the former utility headquarters into a residential building with 112 apartments averaging 1,100 square feet.
He noted that PPL left the building in great shape.
“Compared to other projects that we’ve done in the past, we’re really finding out what’s going on inside the building when we started deconstructing it,” Dye said. “And I can tell you that this project is in a far better place than any of those we’ve done in the past. The infrastructure is in really solid, good shape.”
Dye said D&D is still deciding what to do with the former North Building.
Dave Jaindl, president of Jaindl Land Co., gave an update on the Lehigh Valley Town Center project — which features Topgolf — in Lower Macungie Township near the intersection of Route 222 and Interstate 78.
“We’re working with the municipality, which is very much in favor and trying to push things along,” Jaindl said. “There’s a little bit of a little bit of a stall in the PennDOT, but I think we’ll get through that.”
In addition to Topgolf, the center would include a high-end boutique grocery store, 550 apartments across four buildings, a 100-room hotel, 70,000 square feet of office space, 65,000 square feet of medical office space, 170,000 square feet of retail space, a 20,000-square-foot restaurant, a 60,000-square-foot recreation building and a six-story parking garage.
Jaindl also mentioned the Mary Immaculate project in Lehigh Township is still on track. The former seminary will be turned into a 200-room hotel, which will be promoted as a wedding venue.
Jill Wheeler, vice president of City Center Group, said another office building in downtown Allentown is in the works.
“We’re really excited to announce that we’re going to be building our sixth office building,” she said, “and in the next six weeks you’ll start to hear all the details.”
For its continued redevelopment of its downtown, Easton was recognized with the 2025 Commercial Real Estate Development Award from the chamber.
Mayor Sal Panto Jr. accepted the award and mentioned a slew of projects that have come to fruition in recent years, including the Heritage Riverview, The Commodore, The Wartermark and the Public Market.
He mentioned that the city’s newest complex, The Marquis, is scheduled to open next week.
The seven-story, $80 million structure will be City Center Group’s first apartment space outside of Allentown. It will feature three restaurants.
Other upcoming projects include The Confluence — another City Center project — at the site of the former Day’s Inn and a hotel along Centre Square.
Don Cunningham, president and CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp., opened his speech with a snippet of Billy Joel’s 1980s hit “Allentown” — which symbolized the plight of rust belt cities — to symbolize the need to push the Lehigh Valley’s current branding.
The LVEDC and Discover Lehigh Valley came up with a promotional logo in 2023 and the push is on to get that brand on as many advertisements as possible.
“That’s because if you talk to folks in Philadelphia, you think once you get over the City Line Avenue, it’s all Scranton and the Poconos,” Cunningham said. “So we’ve got to change that, and we’re going to change that.”
Cunningham said it’s important to have a unified message when promoting the Lehigh Valley.
“I think one of the most important things we need to do as a region is work together on branding and telling the story of the Leah Valley today,” he said, “and that is the essence of this campaign. We want the chamber and others to use the logo of the Lehigh Valley and to brand all the great products, the cities and downtown, and piggyback the name of the Lehigh Valley onto those identifiers that people are already familiar with.”