Sept. 1, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
The board behind Allentown’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone will vote tomorrow on adding the Allentown Art Museum’s next site to the tax-favored district.
If ANIZDA — the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone District Authority — approves moving the land at 10th and Hamilton streets into the district, the museum gains financial benefits.
The museum is also seeking public money, putting in for $21 million from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program last year. It received only $500,000 but there’s always time to ask for more.
When the museum announced its intent to move from Fifth Street last year, it cited the need for a better building.
In a recent Morning Call story, an official also cited the need for a better space for its annual gala.
Now that’s not the primary reason for moving, to be sure, but when somebody says something like that, hard questions should follow. Millions of public dollars will be spent for a better party room?
I am a member of several museums but I have never attended a gala nor wish to.
This reminds me of back in 2021 when the Da Vinci Science Center team appeared before ANIZDA and pitched what has turned out to be an immense boondoggle: Da Vinci’s downtown Allentown center, which had a disastrous first year.
The center missed its projections by 60%. Now the Allentown Art Museum is a much more serious institution than Da Vinci, but I hope ANIZDA will show some skepticism tomorrow. At least ask tough questions.
The Da Vinci people threw out ridiculous numbers but walked away with millions of dollars in financing and took millions of taxpayer dollars from the State of Pennsylvania. All for a move that has so failed.
I was at that meeting and was surprised by how things were taken at face value, including projections that turned out to be ridiculous.
The board of ANIZDA will meet at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 2, at the America on Wheels Museum, 5 N. Front St. It’s open to the public.
Disclosure: I’m a fan of the Allentown Art Museum, was once a paying member and may become so again. I will not go to the gala.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 
It is my understanding that a building project receives benefits from ANIZDA to the extent it generates tax revenue in the district. How will the nonprofit Allentown Art Museum generate meaningful tax revenue to benefit from it, since it is a tax-exempt entity that offers free admission?
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If the museum is in the zone, it can get funding via ANIZDA, which can sell bonds.
Certainly there has been a lot of development in the zone. Was it a good idea? Maybe.
I lived in Allentown when it seemed like Hamilton Street was dying.
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