The Bethlehem Planning Commission is set to review plans this week for Gateway on Fourth, a 120-apartment mixed-income development proposed for a long-vacant stretch of East Fourth Street on the city’s South Side, a project officials have called Bethlehem’s first large-scale affordable housing effort in a decade.
What’s Being Proposed
The plan calls for 120 apartments at 1400–1414 E. Fourth St., spread across four buildings on roughly 3.7 acres near the South Bethlehem Greenway. Site plans show two 44-unit mid-rise apartment buildings and two 16-unit low-rise buildings, built in two phases of 60 units each. The mid-rise buildings would stand about 43 feet tall, with the low-rise buildings closer to 31 feet. The parcel was most recently home to the shuttered Szilagyi Fuel and a former towing business.
The Partners Behind the Project
Two very different organizations are teaming up on Gateway on Fourth. The land is being assembled by the Lehigh Valley Industrial Park (LVIP), the Bethlehem-based nonprofit economic-development corporation founded in 1959 in the aftermath of the era’s steelworker strikes. Over the decades, LVIP has developed seven industrial parks across Lehigh and Northampton counties that today host more than 500 businesses and some 24,000 workers, including its 1,000-acre Bethlehem Commerce Center on the former Bethlehem Steel site, a redevelopment widely credited with helping pull the city back from financial ruin. LVIP paid about $4.5 million for the East Fourth Street parcels and plans to complete an environmental cleanup and demolish the existing structures before donating the cleared land to the developer.
That developer is Pennrose, a Philadelphia-based firm founded in 1971 that has grown into one of the country’s most established affordable-housing builders. Pennrose has completed more than 350 developments and over 27,000 rental homes, representing some $5 billion in total investment, and today manages a portfolio of roughly 8,500 apartments across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee and Alabama. The company specializes in mixed-income and affordable communities for working families and seniors, the model it would bring to South Bethlehem.
Mixed-Income by Design
Roughly two-thirds of the apartments would be set aside as affordable housing for households earning between 20% and 60% of the area median income, with the remaining third rented at market rate. Each 60-unit phase is planned to include 46 affordable units and 14 market-rate units. Rents would range from about $279 for the lowest-cost one-bedroom to $1,442 for the highest-cost three-bedroom, and the 60% income threshold works out to roughly $60,120 a year for a family of four.
The Money, and the Open Questions
The first phase drew a major award in October 2025, when the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) granted the project $16 million in competitive federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. Such credits are a common affordable-housing financing tool: developers sell them to investors to raise construction equity, in exchange for a claim against federal taxes spread over 10 years. State Sen. Lisa Boscola and State Rep. Steve Samuelson helped secure an additional $928,623 in state grants, through the Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program and the Local Share Account, and the City of Bethlehem is contributing $3.1 million toward the first phase.
The full 120-unit development has been pegged at roughly $29 million, which works out to about $242,000 per apartment. Yet the funding picture is not complete. The tax credits, city dollars and state grants secured so far all apply to just the first 60 units, and Pennrose has said it still intends to apply for a separate tax-credit award to finance the second phase. How the final price tag lands, and whether the second-phase funding comes through, will help determine when, and whether, all 120 apartments get built.
A Second Look from the Planning Commission
The proposal returns to the Planning Commission after the panel tabled its vote earlier this spring, citing a list of engineering, fire-safety and zoning comments in the city’s review letter. Among the conditions flagged, the developer would need to pay a sanitary sewer tapping fee of about $221,983 and secure approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection before building permits could be issued. The commission is scheduled to take the plan up again on Thursday, July 9, at 5 p.m. at Town Hall. If it advances, construction on the first phase is expected to begin in late 2026 and wrap up by spring 2028, with leasing to follow.
At a Glance
- Project: Gateway on Fourth, a 120-apartment mixed-income development
- Location: 1400–1414 E. Fourth St., South Bethlehem, near the South Bethlehem Greenway
- Layout: two 44-unit mid-rise buildings and two 16-unit low-rise buildings on ~3.7 acres, built in two 60-unit phases
- Developer: Pennrose (Philadelphia, founded 1971); land assembled and donated by Lehigh Valley Industrial Park (founded 1959)
- Affordability: about two-thirds affordable (20%–60% of area median income); rents roughly $279 to $1,442
- Estimated cost: about $29 million for all 120 units (~$242,000 per apartment)
- Funding secured (Phase 1): $16 million in PHFA low-income housing tax credits, $3.1 million from the city and $928,623 in state grants; Phase 2 tax credits not yet awarded
- Next step: Bethlehem Planning Commission review Thursday, July 9, at 5 p.m. at Town Hall
- Timeline: Phase 1 construction late 2026 to spring 2028
