Ep 03: REI MBA - Economic and Real Estate Development in Allentown, PA
In this episode, Tom Williams sits down with us for an interview to share the Allentown, PA Vision 2030, all of the development that has occurred in the city over the past 5 to 7 years and what lies ahead still to come.
Tom Williams is the Operation Manager with Community and Economic Development with the City of Allentown. In total, Tom has been in economic development for roughly 20 years. Before coming to the City of Allentown, he started out in northeastern Pennsylvania at the greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, doing business retention and economic development projects. They developed a lot of industrial parks and were instrumental in a lot of job creation projects in northeastern Pennsylvania. Tom also spent some time within a logistics company as well as architecture engineering and environmental science.
To reach out and see what Tom and his group are doing at the City of Allentown, PA. Check out AllentownPA.gov and you can find the Community and Economic Development page there, which has Tom's contact information.
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Interview Transcripts
Jeremy Moyer: “Hello, everyone. Welcome today. This is a Real Estate Investor MBA. My name is Jeremy Moyer This is a Tejas Gosai, The Tejas Gosai Team over here. We have a Tom Williams with us today. This is exciting. Tom's is the Operation Manager with Community and Economic Development with the City of Allentown. He's here to share some interesting information with what's going on in Allentown right now and maybe in light of some stuff with all the COVID stuff. I know he's really busy, him and his team working through everything. So Tom, can give us a brief history of where you came from and what you're doing right now, and kick this thing off sure?
Tom Williams: “Sure, that sounds great. Thank you guys for having me; looking forward to a good discussion today. So I've been with the city now for about two and a half years in community and economic development. Prior to that, I have been in economic development for roughly 20 years. I started out in northeastern Pennsylvania at the greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, doing business retention and economic development projects. We developed a lot of industrial parks and were instrumental in a lot of job creation projects up there in northeastern Pennsylvania. I also spent some time in within a logistics company as well as architecture engineering and environmental science. So I have been in and around real estate development for many years and really believe that all of my experiences kind of allowed me to be successful in this role and and jumping in here with the city at just such an awesome, wonderful, exciting time in the history of Allentown. It's I'm so fortunate to be here.
Tejas Gosai: “I'm going to jump in. So, Yes, you have a very difficult, I think position, because everybody's looking at Allentown now. It's not like just New York and New Jersey, California. It's other people from outside of the country. And I mean, we rely like, we're like blood covers the second the Morning Call or Don Cunningham or anybody put something good out. You know, I share that with all of my clients and and it's kind of difficult with the kind of national agenda and things that are going on to cut through all this to say, look Allentown, this is the prime time for Allentown. You don't see it, like we see it. It's magical what's happening? And trying to relate that. So I mean, you must have a lot of; I can't imagine how many people that you have to communicate with and keep abreast with just the most cutting-edge top-end news.”
Tom Williams: “Yes. It is challenging. It's an exciting challenge to kind of figure out, you know. In today's world of social media you can you can get to a certain amount of; a certain segment of the population and then there's the traditional news sources. So, we've really tried to to tell our story. You know, when we have prospects in town or folks that are visiting Allentown and maybe they haven't been here in five or ten years and and we walk down the street whether it's Hamilton Street or 7th St or another part of the city. So many times; 99 out of a 100 times, they say, Wow, this isn't Allentown that I remember! This isn't the Billy Joel song anymore. This isn't what you know, the struggling rustbelt city that I had remembered or envision that Allentown is. So, a big part of what we try to do in community and economic development is tell the story of the city and tell people what's going on. Entice them to come back; entice them to see what we have to offer and why we think we are such an asset to Pennsylvania; to the Lehigh Valley and why we are on the upward trend; dramatically upward trend as other communities that maybe just trying to hold their own and and are kind of in a more stagnant position.”
Jeremy Moyer: “Absolutely. When, I mean I grew up here. I remember going with; my Dad grew up down on Bryan Street. We went down there when I was young and it's tremendous to see what has gone on and how everything is just improving. I mean, we have the Neighborhood Improvement Zone, which is the NIZ. We have the Waterfront Project. We have Opportunity Zone in Allentown. We have the 2030 Vision. I mean, there's so much that's going on. Tom, can you just kind of dive into some of these; like these are all really exciting topics and we could; probably if we dove into all these, we could be talking for like 3 hours, right? So can you kind of just highlight some of the exciting things that you are; you know, we're not in all these meetings that you see what's going on just to, you know, give everybody a taste of what to expect.
Tom Williams: “Well, you're right we could spend a show on each of those topics that you brought up because you know as we've talked about the city coming back and really being alive and arts and culture exploding and and the business side of things, you know, attracting world-class companies like ADP to locate a regional headquarters here. Those things don't happen with a silver bullet and they don't happen by chance either, you know. It's not by luck that you're just standing around and and big companies show up and they want to be there. I mean, there's so many partners that make things like this come to reality. It's such a, it's a complicated puzzle and frankly when you're putting the pieces together, which I'm not taking credit for at all. But when these pieces are being aligned and put together, you don't know if they're going to work. You don't know if they're going to have the effect that that you're hoping for, you know. The NIZ is a wonderfully powerful economic development tool. It is something that has has spurred development in the city that I don't know if epic proportions is the right analogy, but just has really allowed significant development projects to occur. So when you think about the roughly 1 million square feet of office space that's been developed in Allentown in the past five years, seven years at the most. I mean that's unbelievable! A city of our size. I would challenge you to find another city, a medium-sized city like Allentown that has had a million square feet of new office space and a vacancy rate as low as we have. I mean, it's just incredible and it is spurring on further development into the neighborhoods. It's creating additional residential needs. You know, it's just been been a wonderful tool that we hope more and more developers figure out how to use and how to figure out how to capture the benefits of the NIZ. One of the other wonderful components of NIZ, is there's a public improvement component. It's a little complicated on how the financing works. But basically there's a letter of credit that subsidize; that can pay for public improvements in the NIZ District. So those things maybe like the parking authority used public improvement dollars to buy the parking kiosks, to automate to remove the parking meters and now automate the parking situation you know into the 20th century. We're doing streets streetscape improvements with the NIZ public improvement monies; we’re going to be revamping the 7th and Hamilton intersection, right there where the monument is and the PPL Center. That was actually the first public improvement project that was approved. It's a lengthy process to redo an intersection (the focal intersection of Allentown like that one), you know, it's a PennDOT roadway as well which adds additional challenges. But it's just really exciting to see the the city being redeveloped. And having a focus on building a community. The NIZ is not designed just to build buildings. It is a primary component but really folks that are participating in the NIZ are building community and building a place that the people want to be in and has amenities that modern companies are looking for, you know to attract and retain talent to help keep their business competitive. So the NIZ has been awesome trying to think of some of the other initiatives going on Vision 2030. Go ahead.”
Tejas Gosai: Sorry. I was about to say that and I'm going to pull it up the vision. I forgot the website. I'll pull it up though. Please continue my bad.”
Tom Williams: “Yeah, I believe it's www.AllentownVision2030.org. So that was our updated comprehensive plan; municipal comprehensive plan. Municipalities are required to do it every 10 years. And so we set out to really dig deep into what the community wants. Basically who we want to be when we grow up. The last time the the comprehensive plan was done in the city, it was done internally. We made a concerted effort to hire some really strong consultants, to help guide us through through this process. We really needed outside eyes and ears to help us objectively look at the city and tell us if; tell us where we are on the mark and tell us some things maybe we didn't realize about ourselves. So what you're looking at right there on the screen is the final plan over. On the right hand side and all the components of it, all the public interactions, all the meetings, the community survey. This was a 15-month process, that was absolutely fantastic.
Tejas Gosai: I can't imagine how much this stuff costs. How much logistical you know plate you have to make something like this; let alone like a business owner or a realtor trying to make a website; like this is intense.”
Tom Williams: It is. We spent a significant amount of money because the administration you know with the NIZ, with the Waterfront, with the energy that we had, this is the time, such a crucial point in the history of Allentown, that the stars are aligning and there's an interest in activity. We have such, we have to do this, right we can't be stuck in the mud and waste an opportunity like we've had right here. So Vision 2030 was just a wonderful community outreach. We created a community engagement Hub. We had a storefront just for the comprehensive plan. So people wanted to walk in and talk and just get whatever was on their mind and express that to us. We man that I forget a hundred and forty days out of the time that the comprehensive plan was going on. So that was great, as well as we had a community ambassador program. So with our staff we can't reach everybody we want to and need to, so the community ambassadors was just an extension of what the staff was doing and how we were reaching out into the community. We had a meeting in a box. Basically we created a kit where you could take this to your church or to your community group, gather the feedback and then bring it back and have it incorporated into the plan. So we're really proud of what Allentown Vision 2030 was and where it's going to take us. Sorry I start to dominate. I like to talk sometime.”
Tejas Gosai: “Yeah, go ahead Jeremy if you have something.”
Jeremy Moyer: “I love asking these questions to our guests. Where we are right now, you know economically, politically whatever with the pandemic. I know, I read the stories of what's going on in Easton and Bethlehem and Allentown and Tom, your like Ground Zero with trying to keep this economy in…sort of in a bubble. Lets just put a bubble around us so we can keep striving forward. What are you doing? And what is your team doing to minimize the impact and the blow that the pandemic has done within the city?”
Tom Williams: “Yeah. So that's a that's a challenging one. I mean really, you know COVID has just disrupted so much of what we knew and what we thought was certain, you know, three to four months ago. I mean, it just has turned everything upside down and made our lives, made our jobs here at the city very challenging. And so we're trying to listen closely to the community. We're trying to listen to the businesses and what they need and how we can try to help them. One of the things we implemented early on was a small business assistance programs so we provided Grant funds. We have roughly $500,000 dollars from the CARES Act and we created a grant program for small businesses with less than a million dollars in gross receipts and they were up to $5,000 of assistance. We know that may not it still may not keep everybody in business, but hopefully it can pay a few bills and can help that business get by for a little while longer until the economy gets restarted and they can start providing the product or service that they already do. So, you know, we had an online application and that application was; we received close to 300 applications in like six hours and we had to shut it off because we knew we couldn't fund that many. I think we funded somewhere around a 125 businesses. We wish we could do more and we wish there was more funding available. And frankly, you know reading the stories of what people were going through was just heartbreaking and so we tried really hard to get this money on the street as quickly as we could. I come from a small business background in my family and we had a small business when I was growing up. And so I can't imagine trying to have to go through what the restaurants and the retail establishments are trying to do right now. My heart goes out and we're trying everything we can as a city to listen and try to be helpful.”
Tejas Gosai: “I’d like to jump. I see things that you are doing for example, if I can pull this up on the screen. I don't know if you had anything to do with this stuff (New Lehigh Valley Guide Released as Real Estate Transactions Resume). They just released this and I mean, you might not even know about this, but I'm looking at this and it just came out on June 2nd and you know, there's so much momentum that you and your colleagues have started in the past three weeks that you know, it's hard to say because there's this Morning Call article and then there's this other thing and then something else comes out. I shared this with; I have a 20,000 person mailing list. I sent this out, just a hey guys, we are going be okay and we're insulated. And if you want to know what I mean by I believe the Valley is insulated, we can talk about it. But you know, here's some amazing things that are happening that are statistically, you know, and this is math. You can't lie about this $41.2 billion and to put it in writing and really make it available is giving us legs, you know. And the businesses need this type of stuff. And you know, you're like our saviors at the end of the day. Like if we don't have this, you know, how do we pick up the next piece of business and things like that? So it's it's very cool for me to see it from, because I'm a news junkie and you know when there's something like my God, this is so underutilized. I can send this to all of these other people and and now over the past just even five to six days, I'm getting phone calls from investors that are like, okay, I read this; I'm ready and I have the money and I've been waiting since 2007 for the right thing to happen. Not to make all of this about opportunity, but you know, there are people, the best marketing for the entire Lehigh Valley happened because of COVID. Before COVID, we had people flocking here. Now, we have more people flocking here. I don't want to take advantage of this, but I am from the Valley and I live here, my kids live here, and I like it that things are becoming nicer and it's cool. So it's just I'm appreciative. You know, I don't get to say thank you to somebody in a position like yours. But you know you guys are really; you are the heroes. You're doing it for us and I don't know how you guys do more. But I'm excited to see what else happens in the next pieces. And you know, it's fun.”
Tom Williams: “That's that's so great to hear. Hold on just to get my Cape. Hold on one second. Your compliments are so nice to hear. I'm not sure if the praises in the right direction. And because there are so many people that are making a difference in the Lehigh Valley. So that piece you just showed is put together by, I believe by Mike Keller from Lehigh Valley Made Possible and we love the stuff that he's doing and talking about and highlighting and promoting about the region. The visuals are so important. We always try to have when we're putting out content to have great pictures. I can make a story out of any picture at any good picture. Around the city. So I mean it's so crucial and your help in promoting what's going on in Lehigh Valley and spreading that word is just is so important. Again, you're part of the team too. It’s all of us who are doing this together.”
Tejas Gosai: “Well, thank you, but I do feel that way too. I do genuinely see that. Very funny, Luke Jaindl just called me; get to name drop. But it is a fun community. I've only been in this area…I moved here because my wife; my wife's family is from here and they're a little bit older than my folks. So I didn't know what to expect but the amount of activity is unheard of and so for me just my opinion that I'll throw out there is I do feel like the Valley is insulated and from a real estate perspective, I don't see an offseason happening the rest of this here, and all of next year and I think it will go into the winter of the following year. Because I know clients and people for example in 2018 and 2019 that lost out on homes who were from New Jersey that have 800 credit scores. They should have won that property, but the only reason they didn't is because it was a contingent offer. So there are droves of people that I know that sold their houses last year moved in with their parents so that their offers would be accepted in this season and they didn't have an opportunity to gone after it yet. And now it's insane. It's horrible what's happening. You cannot buy a house. There are like 20 to 30 offers on this stuff, post-COVID in the middle of madness. So, you know, I see this stuff and and I know it's only going to continue. I'm like very wholeheartedly putting my faith in and I say Don Cunningham a lot, but I love that guy. You know to see every piece that comes out, the next pieces in the news channels. It is wonderful, so I'm like all in and and I'm not scared and I can publicly say that. But I am a little bit intimidated by how how the rest of the world is playing out because we are on the bubble and it's weird to be in a bubble.”
Tom Williams: “Yeah, that's true. While our economy, you know kind of, so much of what we do is inside Lehigh Valley. But when things nearby to us go south, you know, there are going to be some some bumps that we're going to hit along the way as well. But you know, what we've been talking about is building a resilient community and finding ways to make sure that we can lessen those valleys and take advantage. You know raise the peaks as much as we can, but without going through, you know, a dramatic roller coaster. So we feel like we're making progress and we're getting there and you know, our department and community and economic development and really the city administration. We're trying to branch out to build partnerships and build relationships and and find ways to all really work together. It's a new day in Allentown, and we're trying to be an inclusive city. And welcome new residents and welcome new businesses and just, you know be a welcoming place.”
Tejas Gosai: “I’ll ask one last question as we're getting closer to the time limit. B how how much does your group or how much do you work with Bethlehem and Easton similar groups, you know, I'm sure there are some parallels here and there? But you guys are the big dogs….Allentown. I’m sure Bethlehem and Easton are kinda modeling some things after you guys.”
Tom Williams: “Frankly, we all model things after each other. I mean I wouldn't, Allentown is not the big dog. Although we have a larger population than the other cities, but really I don't think we'd be as be successful as we are without Bethlehem or Easton, and I don't think they would be without us either. I personally try not to compare us to Bethlehem or Easton because we're different, because Easton is a different set of parameters and a different population and a different location and you know Bethlehem has their charm and the music and the South Side and all the stuff that Bethlehem does and Allentown is different. I think sometimes folks in the community get; it's easy to try to compare the cities, but I don't think that's a productive discussion to have. I'm not; I don't believe our city is in competition with Bethlehem because if they struggle, we're going to struggle in some of the same ways. So to your question about how we how we work together and communicate. We work together on certain projects. We don't communicate as much as we should or maybe as we need to because I think we do need to be better aligned on you know, how Allentown can leverage off of Musikfest and how you know, Bethlehem can leverage off of the great Allentown Fair. I mean, there's so many things where, whether it's hotels or people coming to the Valley for certain events. I mean with those things, people coming are not just staying in Bethlehem, when they come to Musikfest. They're not just staying in in Allentown when they come to an event here or Blues, Brews and Barbecues or whatever it might be. I mean, we need to work together more and and we get to with different projects, whether we collaborate on blight remediation sometimes or some different programs, you know. There's been more sharing that's been going on lately. But you know, we're also honestly and frankly repairing bridges, repairing partnerships that were strained kind of over the years.”
Tejas Gosai: “Thats awesome.”
Jeremy Moyer: “So Tom, if any if any listener was interested in like doing or had an idea in like a public-private partnership with the city of Allentown, who would be the best avenue for them to look into that with the city?”
Tom Williams: “Yeah, that would be really through our department here in community and economic development. So by reaching out to myself or our Director, Leonard Leightner or Daniel Diaz, who is our Business Development Manager here at the City and Allentown. AllentownPA.gov is the city's website and you can you can find the Community Economic Development page on there, which has all of our contact information. So, I mean, that's really the first place to get started and then we can figure out whether it's a planning, where the planning director should be involved or with public works or kind of kind of where the ship needs to be steered from there. But you know public-private partnerships are crucial to making improvements. You know, Neighborhood Revitalization can't take place without public private partnerships, blight remediation that we're doing right now and we're really proud of the blight homes, the blighted properties and homes that we're getting back on the tax rolls. And providing amazing new homes for families in the city and frankly when we're selling them, we're just about breaking even which is where we need to be because of the strong real estate market. So things like that and you know, there's a lot of talk about the housing situation in Allentown and whether we need more affordable housing and if you dive into Vision 2030, you'll see some discussion on some opportunities to to deal with some of the housing issues. But we believe that the challenges of housing are more related to quality than quantity and and we have to find ways to incentivize investors and have folks take better care of their properties and try to upgrade the quality that's out there. And I know it's not easy. I know that the challenges whether it's from the tenants that are generally renting and if they're taking good care of it. We also know there's there's lead paint and there's a lot of issues that are expensive to deal with as an investor. But, you know, every housing rehab out there can't be subsidized. There's just not enough money and resources out there in the world to provide all that. So we're trying to find ways to help folks like you, you know, re-invest in properties and try to upgrade the quality that's out there, because you know, the health of our community is really important, that the health and safety of the residents that are all out there.”
Tejas Gosai: “Awesome. We are running out of time.”
Tom Williams: “What! There is so much I want to talk about.”
Tejas Gosai: “We have to have you back in the future if that's okay? But our last question is and you got to pick one. What's your favorite restaurant in the Valley? No one likes that one.”
Tom Williams: “Ugh…. That’s like choosing your favorite child. It's it's It's really difficult. I don't I really don't know if I can pick the favorite restaurant. You know, you turn around another corner in Allentown and you find another place out there. I know the directive is to answer the question, but I can't answer the question.”
Tejas Gosai: “Okay, what will go with Bethlehem Brew Works. I'm kidding, I’m kidding because it's in Bethlehem.”
Tom Williams: “The Allentown Fegley’s Brew Works is fantastic. That's a great place. Love it.”
Tejas Gosai: “No, no, it is hard. You're the only one I'll let you go. You're the only one who hasn't answered it, but it's been great. You know, that's a big thing about our community too. My wife's a foodie and has like 500 reviews on Yelp. Like our community is really becoming a miniature New York City from my perspective, you know. And there's people from New York City every day, every hour hunting in the community. So it's really wonderful. Tom, thank you so much. You are full of knowledge and thank you for sharing. We will have you on in the future if that's okay?”
Tom Williams: “I would love to. I would love to talk real estate. I've always been interested, you know, and how communities are built and frankly where buildings come from and why streets are named, you know Hamilton Street, where did that come from? There's a story behind every block and every building and every street in every town and I think it's fascinating and I love the work that you guys are doing and putting together this podcast and love to participate again in the future. It's great stuff.”
Tejas Gosai: “And thank you again so much. That's Tom Williams, Operations Manager, City of Allentown and we've been talking about some of the developments. We're going to have a bunch of the links that I just shared in here so you can check it out. See what Allentown is doing and thats my co-host Jeremy Moyer. Thank you so much for being here. We'll check you out next time. Cheers everyone. Thank you.
