A City Rebuilt. One Project at a Time.

How civil engineering helped transform downtown Allentown into one of Pennsylvania's most active urban revitalization stories.

For decades, development in the United States sprawled outward. Find land at the edge of a city, build, and repeat. But that model is under increasing strain. Land near employment centers is harder to find, infrastructure costs at the suburban fringe keep rising, housing demand in mid-size cities is outpacing supply, and state and local policy increasingly favors density, transit access, and downtown investment. The case for building up instead of out has rarely been stronger, and the cities best positioned to capture that opportunity are the ones with the infrastructure, the partners, and the engineering teams already in place to make it happen.

Allentown, Pennsylvania is one of those cities. Two decades ago, its downtown core was losing ground, with vacant lots on prominent corners and a once-thriving commercial corridor in decline. Then City Center Investment Corporation made a bet on the city, and RETTEW has been the civil engineering team behind much of what followed. RETTEW has worked on more than thirty consecutive projects spanning office, residential, mixed-use, hospitality, transit, and public spaces, which has garnered two ULI Awards for Excellence and recognition from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Lehigh Valley Business. That body of work did not start with a decade-long commitment. Much of it began one project at a time, and RETTEW was just as glad to take on that first project as the thirtieth. What follows is that story, told through the projects that built it, and what it can mean for your next project, whether it is one site or the start of something larger.