2013 Big Year for Hockey Arena Construction

After a lawsuit over suburban taxes slowed the Phantoms Hockey Arena project in 2012, the construction is back on for a 2014 opening.

The countdown is on to the drop of the first puck in the Lehigh Valley's new hockey arena in 2014. The arena, which will become the home turf of a minor league team called the Phantoms, is projected to open in August 2014, with Phantoms training camp beginning in September, according to Robert Brooks, who is co-owner of the Phantoms with his brother Jim. Work is underway at the site at Seventh and Linden streets, Allentown.  “The arena will truly be a multi-use facility,” Robert Brooks said in an e-mail. “The arena will not only be the home of the Phantoms Hockey Team but it is planned to hold more than 140 events each year (hockey, concerts, family shows – like Disney on Ice, Harlem Globetrotters, trade shows, high school events, college …

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East Penn School District

East Penn to Lose $160,000 to Hockey Arena Project

East Penn Board of School Directors finally learn how much they will lose in tax revenue to Allentown's controversial Neighborhood Improvement Zone.

The East Penn Board of School Directors learned at Monday night’s school board meeting that East Penn stands to lose close to $160,000 this year in earned income tax money to Allentown’s controversial Neighborhood Improvement Zone. Lynn Glancy, East Penn’s operations director, reported to the board that the administration finally is able to put concrete numbers to the NIZ impact, thanks to a report released earlier this month by Berkheimer Associates, Allentown’s tax collector. That report says the city’s special downtown tax zone -- created to fund a $220 million hockey arena and other improvement projects -- will collect about $1.8 million from outside municipalities, according to The Morning Call. In East Penn, the quarterly breakdown …

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Ron Beitler

8:08 am on Thursday, June 21, 2012

Separate, but both have a % taken away by the NIZ   more ›

Borough Manager Discusses Impact of EIT Collection on Emmaus

Allentown NIZ will take money away from Emmaus; Philadelphia litigation could bring money back.

The new Emmaus Borough Manager publicly celebrated his 30th day on the job at last night’s Emmaus Borough Council meeting with a report on Earned Income Tax collection that demonstrated both a black cloud and a silver lining. Shane Pepe, who officially began his career as Emmaus Borough Manager on Jan. 23, pointed out that there’s been a lot of controversy lately regarding EIT collection, particularly regarding the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ) where the hockey stadium is being constructed. Many people are “very adamant about fighting something that is probably too late to fight, since the bill has already been passed,” Pepe said, of the NIZ. “People are upset about the bill, saying that it was snuck through without …

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Arena Tax Deal Brings Frustration, Skepticism

Neighborhood Improvement Zone will divert $550,000 in earned income tax to arena, other Allentown development; away from school districts and municipalities.

A special tax incentive zone set up to help Allentown build a hockey arena and redevelop other parts of its downtown and waterfront will skim an estimated $550,000 in earned income taxes from surrounding municipalities and school districts. So reported Garret Strathearn, Allentown’s director of finance, who had the unenviable task of discussing and defending the Neighborhood Improvement Zone to a group of local government officials who gathered Thursday morning at the Hanover Township Community Center in Northampton County for a special joint session of the Tax Collection Committees of both Lehigh and Northampton counties. By the end of the session, many of those officials remained as they were – frustrated about the apparent secrecy under…

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