A region reimagined, striving, thriving, innovating, collaborating, elevating and accelerating.

The crater of Lehigh Valley is home to businesses that are booming and game changers that are forging the future.

This is Lehigh Valley Rising.

BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter of Lehigh Valley Rising.

Additional support provided by Adams Outdoor Advertising.

- Roughly 4,000 people a year are moving to the Lehigh Valley.

Last year saw the construction of over 6,000 homes and the approval of 22 million square feet of non residential real estate.

The Valley is growing at a faster rate than any other area in the Northeast - and that's great news for the construction industry.

The building business is booming, but the boom wouldn't be so big without things like the neighborhood improvement zone, or NIZ, in Allentown and the City Revitalization and Improvement Zone, or CRIZ, in Bethlehem.

- There are a few cities that have lost as much as Bethlehem has lost and come back from that.

We are very much the exception and not the rule.

We had to make big bets on ourselves.

We had to take big risks in order for us to get through that period of time.

- Original vision early on was to recreate Allentown as the financial and business center of the Lehigh Valley.

We just realized that this is just way bigger than, you know, a project.

- It's not government's role, in my opinion, to create jobs.

It's government's role to create the right environment and prime the pump through the proper incentives for that investment to take place.

- NIZ stands for Neighborhood Improvement Zone.

- And the CRIZ is the city revitalisation improvement zone.

- The NIZ zone, the whole purpose of the legislation was to not only ignite economic development but community development.

We're in a four decade decline in Allentown.

The legislation has really revitalized not only physical buildings in Allentown, but the community - education, health care, infrastructure, parks, cultural institutions.

It's a very broad and complex program and I think it's working.

- CRIZ is a very unique incentive, similar to the NIZ, but with a couple of key differences.

The CRIZ allows developers such as us to do is provide incentives to our end users, particularly our retail tenants, by being able to capture any and all state taxes that their businesses generate.

- And that allows us to upfront some costs for these young businesses to get on the ground and get going.

- It was kind of the last thing I did in my time as mayor back in December of 2013 is when we were awarded this designation.

It's nice that I've now had the opportunity sort of in the private sector to try to really utilize it to its fullest extent.

- The PPL Centre was the catalyst of the revitalisation.

To have a significant multipurpose arena in the Lehigh Valley gave confidence in the revitalization - ...backhander, scores!

- Now what we're looking to do is expand in an area in a neighborhood called Downtown West, and the opportunity there, we think, is to is to create this bohemian, eclectic, cool neighborhood that is anchored by a really neat music hall, which is going to be the Archer Music Hall.

We have what we are calling Story Apartments, which is at the former Allentown Morning Call site, which will be about 230 apartments.

This summer we'll open up two really significant uses - one is Community Services for Children's Head Start program, which will serve over 400 young pre-K students daily, and then also Valley Health Partners will be opening up a health clinic.

- We are in Five10 Flats, which is kind of a marquee building for us.

It's 95 luxury apartments over about 15,000 square feet of street level retail.

We are seeing a pretty healthy mix of young working professionals and sort of empty nesters who are downsizing.

- We have graduate students, we have millennials, you know, people that want to live in the city.

South Side has become incredibly cool.

Our retail partners are one of the real fun parts of the job that we do.

Adam and Kate, who own and run Social Still, have had roots in this region for a long time, came down to South Side.

They saw what we saw early on, before a lot of this was here, and took a chance on a really unique, very cool building that was a 1920s era bank and created what I think is just one of the greatest projects I've seen in the Valley, which is Social Still, and that's been a great success.

The initial El Jefe's store was located on Harvard's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The second store that they opened was here in Bethlehem because of the incentive that we have here in South Side.

You know, having developed relationships with the owners of Social Still, with El Jefe's, with Mr Lee's, really kind of helps sort of ground us into our buildings.

- We're about to start the Confluence in Easton, which will be about 250 units.

We live here, we work here, we play here, so to speak.

We love the restaurants, we love the amenities.

- From the art museum to Archer Music Hall to PPL Center, there's variety of performances, there's sports, there's culture, there's music, the community events, and it's all designed to attract a pretty broad range of people.

- People are invested here.

People are going to show up and they're going to let you know how they feel and then they're going to roll up their sleeves and get busy trying to make it happen.

- It's been fascinating to see all those sites change over time.

Now, once a construction or revitalization project has been approved by the city, the developers need some answers.

How can we build safely?

What materials should we use?

How, in short, are we going to pull this off?

Luckily, we happen to have a world class architecture firm right here in the Lehigh Valley - MKSD.

- Our motto is beyond the building.

Our firm is much more than just a design firm that designs buildings, but one that really creates relationships within our community.

We have some clients that we've worked for for almost 20 years in business.

We have interior designers, we have project managers, we have architects.

- I participated in a program years ago where we went into an elementary school to help kids understand what architects do, and the partner at the time described it as, the architect creates a recipe for a building.

We create a list of what goes into a building, what kind of windows, flooring, structural materials, roofing, etc.

Then we create a set of drawings which tells you how to put the recipe together.

- It's really just lines on a page, for lack of a better term.

- I always thought that was a good analogy in terms of what an architect does.

You create a recipe for a building.

- One of the first steps when we start a design project, we interview people that work in that company.

We interview the owners, we tour their existing spaces, we try to find out the history of the company.

Does this company want a modern, compelling building with modern materials and details, or are they someone that wants to reference the history of their company with more traditional materials?

- We'll take a lot of sketches down, we'll take inspirational images from online sources.

- Different elements that are involved in the finishes from the floor, the ceiling, the walls and even lighting components.

Just really try and encapsulate who they are, and then those finishes and concepts would then be presented to the client to really get them on board.

- We'll then take it into the computer and really start hard lining plans and shaping the spaces for them.

- We also use a 3D modeling program to help really drive in those finishes, design decisions, and it's a really good way for them to see how their space is going to be developed.

- And I think we get to know them through that process and it helps shape kind of how the building works, really.

I think if we can incorporate some of their personality into the architecture, whether it's a pop of color on the exterior of the building or a piece of furniture, I think that's the differentiator.

- Right now we have the Da Vinci Science Center under construction in Allentown, PA, and that's been a great project to work on, many years in the making.

- We have the brick over here.

I can show you.

It's sort of a dark gray brick.

There's some orange highlights that they want to have around some of the detail of the windows.

The lettering is a is a nice pop of orange.

They have a lot of this orange color going around in some of their installations.

Da Vinci Science Center is a huge one for the Valley.

It's a big community based project that's going to be fantastic.

- One of the really cool exhibits we've been working on, the first time ever that we've done a live exhibit with otters.

So we actually had to design an otter habitat, and I think that's going to be something that people really gravitate towards, and a really fun exhibit for kids and adults alike.

- Another one that Todd's actually working on is the ArtsQuest Center.

- One of the greatest projects that I've worked on is the new community college for Northampton Community College in Monroe County.

It's not every day that you get a brand new college campus to work on and design, but it has every aspect of a campus that you can think of, from admissions to gymnasium to cafeterias, and is also very environmentally friendly, which is something that we're really proud of.

- We do a lot of work with the health care networks in the Lehigh Valley.

- So health care design is very unique because it has a tremendous number of code regulations that the architecture must comply with.

It's very focused on functionality and being safe space.

We go beyond the building by understanding our clients' missions, understanding our clients' visions for their projects.

Every project is unique.

Every project has a unique set of parameters and constraints.

We're constantly thinking creatively about how to solve every issue for a project in a creative, aesthetically appealing way.

- I think, as an architect, as graphic designers, as interior designers, we're problem solvers - we're challenged creatively daily, and I think we like that.

I think we like a challenge.

If we can design a building that functions really well for the client, that's efficient but also looks fantastic, I think we've succeeded.

- Across the lobby from MKSD sits headquarters for Boyle Construction.

The family owned company has been operating in the Valley since the late '70s, and is currently developing quite a few fascinating projects around the region, including a first of its kind medical facility for Lehigh Valley Health Network.

- What makes us build better is the team, and the chemistry that this team has with each other and the interaction with our clients.

It started as a little tongue in cheek.

My dad, he had wrote down four or five of these taglines on a sheet of paper, and we all voted on them as a family.

So that's really how it started.

- The company was started 45 years ago by my grandfather.

- When we rebranded ourselves Boyle Construction, we work with Michael Sayre, and talked about it, and I said, that's just kind of some silly tagline my dad came up with that we all voted on when I was 13, but he's like, "Well, if it sticks, it works."

So it kind of became our motto.

- Behind us is the medical office building that we, Boyle Construction, is building in conjunction with Lehigh Valley Health Network and Embrey Development Group.

- We're doing a ton of work with Lehigh Valley Health Network at the moment.

Each campus is a medical office building micro hospital, its first of its kind in this region, and we're really excited to be part of it.

- It's kind of the stopgap between an urgent care and the main hospital.

- The neighborhood hospital is basically just a small version of a full blown hospital.

- It has about ten inpatient rooms, some exam trauma rooms, it has a full imaging suite with CAT, scan, MRI and X-ray.

- Standing here looking at the blueprints for this area where we are, we're in the emergency department of this new hospital, behind me we have a nice skylight nurses station, trying to make it as warm and inviting as it can be, coming to an emergency room.

- Then there's a medical office building on the same site - separate building.

- It's a three story, 30,000 square foot medical office building that will provide medical facilities for the local community.

- And the purpose is to put in areas that are a little bit more remote areas away from those main campuses to provide that high quality care without having to travel quite as far.

- Great new addition to the neighborhood, which I am a part of - I live just up the street from here.

I'm very excited to be part of this project.

- It's the first of its kind, so whenever you're doing first of kind, there's a lot of issues to be flushed out.

- We've done a lot of exciting projects.

A lot of our work is repeat business year to year, so Lehigh Valley Hospitals, Ciocca car dealerships, Paxos restaurants, you know, a lot of people have been to Melt and Torre and those type of restaurants, a lot of people have been to Ciocca dealerships, but it's the long lasting relationships that really are the things we're probably most proud of.

- ArtsQuest has been a fantastic partner and client of ours for years.

We've worked with them on many different projects.

We're excited about the Banana Factory, which is under design and development at the moment.

We were entrusted with the Levitt Pavilion many years ago.

to kind of blend art and construction, and, you know, that that amphitheater is still, to this day, one of the coolest places in the Valley to see a concert.

We're very proud to be a part of that, as well as the Hoover-Mason Trestle behind it.

Really, really neat project.

- Another great project, Polk Street parking garage.

It's awesome to build something that, you know, that really contributes to the downtown.

- Another huge project that is on the horizon is the Confluence Apartment Complex in eastern Pennsylvania.

That's going to be upwards of 250 apartments likely starting next year.

There's going to be some retail space there, really a beautiful outdoor park that's going to kind of be a cornerstone of that entry into Easton.

Built Better is a holistic approach to the construction projects that we do.

There's no secret sauce to the materials used or really even the subcontractors in the Lehigh Valley.

The Valley, although it's grown a lot, it's still pretty small in the scheme of things, and everybody does know everybody.

What we do differently is our people and the relationships that we form with the clients, and the only reason why we're still here today is because of the relationships that we've formed.

- Boyle isn't the only player in the game, of course - the Butz family has been building things around here since the days of the covered bridges.

In fact, the first thing they ever built was a covered bridge - and, like the Butz family itself, it's still standing strong.

- We do like to do projects that are unique.

We're not building tract housing developments or apartment buildings or anything like that.

With Butz, I've done the Sands Casino now, the Wind Creek Casino.

I was on the PPL Center, museums, health care, hospitality, education.

- We're proud to put our name on projects that will be remembered and appreciated for a long time.

- By improving these structures and bringing these new facilities into the Valley, it improves the quality of life for a lot of our Lehigh Valley residents.

- The history of the company dates back to the mid-1800s when we started building covered bridges in the Lehigh Valley.

And the first identified project that we were able to locate was Bogert's Bridge in Allentown, and it was constructed in the early 1840s by Solomon Butz, which would be my great-great-great grandfather, I believe.

When our company was first coming up, we were a general contractor and bid on projects.

So we would replace a window, replace a door frame here or there, and that just kind of grew, and then once the insurance aspect of the business came into play, we partnered with the insurance companies, and we're a preferred vendor on their side, and it and it just kind of opened the door to bigger and bigger projects.

And then in the '70s or '80s, switched to construction management.

In the early phases of a construction project, we work with the design team to establish the budget and the schedule for a project.

Our responsibility is to bring the project in under budget most of the time and hopefully finish it before schedule.

- Marcon Properties approached Butz to help them get involved and redevelop these two buildings.

- Allentown Metal Works was a metal fab shop for many years, and about 15 or 20 years ago they ceased to exist, so the property over on South 10th Street just started to fall apart.

We're involved in restoring that into a new panel shop.

- So, welcome to Allentown panel shop number one, 50,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

It will be the home of Eastern Exterior Wall Systems.

A lot of this building is new.

When we started the selective demolition, the only thing that remained was the skeleton - and the wood you see here is the original timbers from the early 1900s.

This wood remained.

On site we have all sorts of different trades, from demolition, carpentry, electricians, mechanical trades.

As a Lehigh Valley resident, I think it's excellent to bring more workers here and revitalize Allentown and the Lehigh Valley.

- Proud to be involved in the revitalization of Allentown.

We're also very proud to be involved in Coca-Cola Park in Allentown.

I think the Da Vinci Science Center downtown here is going to fall into that category as well.

The Lehigh Valley is certainly home for us.

We've been operating and living here for a long time.

Generations before me, it was thriving, then kind of went through more of a quiet phase and now it's coming back again.

So I think the more of that type of activity that can happen will just be a benefit to everybody.

When we build a building, we understand that we're a partner with you for life, essentially.

- Just three miles down the river from the old metalworks sits the new Allentown Waterfront Project.

Currently under construction are a string of mixed use buildings, an amphitheater and a brand new river walk.

We spoke with Mayor Matt Tuerk and developer Mark Jaindl about their hopes for the new development.

- The idea behind the development, first of all, it's right next to the Lehigh River, and the river is beautiful, people love being next to water.

Whether you're down at the shore or whether you're next to a river, they really enjoy it.

We've seen other cities across the country, whether it's Baltimore's Inner Harbor or San Antonio Riverwalk, that have done very similar things that we're doing here.

- But I know that there's been ideas about redeveloping this land.

The first plan I think I saw was from 1997.

It really took off when the Pennsylvania state legislature passed the NIZ legislation, which created financing structure to allow developers to build new sites in the town.

That really took off in earnest in about 2014, and that's what resulted in the PPL Center arena being built that brought the Phantoms downtown, resulted in significant redevelopment of the downtown.

This area was included in the NIZ.

It took a little bit longer to get started.

- There was a lot of work that needed to be done to the site, including the fact that there were 12 dilapidated buildings across the 29 acres.

- I used to work for the Allentown Economic Development Corporation, and I can remember looking at Lehigh Structural Steel as a site, and this waterfront at that time was full of mostly, at that point, abandoned industrial buildings.

Now we're standing in a building that's looking over the Lehigh River and is just absolutely incredible.

- What we did is we came in, we removed those buildings and at the same time, we began negotiations with a lot of other neighboring property owners, one of which was RJ Corman Railroad.

So we actually picked up about three and a half miles of railroad that goes from Union Street in Allentown all the way up to Ray Street in Whitehall, and we made a decision very early on in the process that we were going to take that railroad and convert that into a road which is now Riverside Drive.

- This is part of a larger master planned development on the Lehigh River, the direction of which I'm just excited to be a witness to.

- It's about 168 miles of Riverwalk that people can enjoy just spending time on.

- There will be new residential opportunities here.

This connects into a Greenway, it connects into a trail that can take you from Jim Thorpe to Philadelphia.

- We'll have about 750 residents that will be living at the waterfront.

We have a dock on our site.

The site is going to be made up of nine different buildings with five of those buildings being office and four of those buildings being apartments, and with those apartments, we will have storage areas in them that people can have their kayaks and canoes and paddleboards so if they want to go down to the dock and go into the river, they're welcome to do that.

- It's important to Allentown that we have access to this amazing riverfront.

It's one of our natural resources, it's one of the city's assets that has never really been taken advantage of before.

This will be a destination office site.

- American Bank was started about 26 years ago.

We have about half of our team members here at the waterfront.

Our team members love this space.

You can ask any one of them as you as you walk around, and they are just thrilled with what they have here.

They like the river and they like the way the space has been laid out.

There's a lot of light coming through because all of our walls in our offices are glass.

So it's a really nice feel for them here at the site.

The economic impact of the waterfront is very great when it comes to the employment of individuals.

And when I'm talking about employment, I'm talking about the employment of individuals that are actually constructing the buildings and constructing the infrastructure on the site.

In addition, there'll be about 2,800 employees that will be working out of this location through time, and a lot of those employees will be local employees to this area.

We estimate approximately $4 million of additional real estate taxes will be contributed by the waterfront.

- The city deserves access to this amazing river.

This city deserves continued investment.

The people who live here have been absolutely amazing and they've worked through some hard times in the past.

For us to be on the rise in such a celebratory way, that's important.

This is the beginning of the development of a waterfront in Allentown and for the Lehigh Valley, and we're just so excited about the future here.

- Well, that does it for us.

Remember, you can catch this and every other episode of Lehigh Valley Rising on pbs39.org, or on the PBS app.

I'm Grover Silcox.

See you next time.

BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter of Lehigh Valley Rising.