One of the new apartments at the Cityplace residential community in downtown Allentown.

Throughout the pandemic, City Center Allentown has continued its work to help develop and revitalize the downtown Allentown neighborhood, and this week marked another milestone in those efforts.

City Center held a virtual ribbon-cutting and online tour on Aug. 6 for its newest nine-story residential community, Cityplace, a 120-apartment complex located at the repurposed former Holiday Inn on 9th and Hamilton streets.

It is one of several announcements by City Center in recent weeks. It also recently announced Iota Communications, Inc. would relocate its corporate headquarters into Tower 6, meaning all of the space in the 145,000 square foot office building is now fully leased.

Additionally, during the virtual tour of Cityplace, City Center discussed plans to establish an addition to Cityplace’s south side that will feature 84 apartments, surrounding a garden courtyard, sports and residential lounges, co-working space, and two gymnasiums.

City Center’s residential and office spaces offer a live/work/play environment and strong quality of life that will help attract a talented workforce to Lehigh Valley, a key objective of the Made Possible in Lehigh Valley initiative.

A virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for Cityplace on Aug. 6.

“Cityplace is a significant project for a couple of reasons,” said City Center Allentown President J.B. Reilly. “It’s a major adaptive reuse project in Allentown, and more importantly, Cityplace provides attainably-priced apartments to this community.”

Cityplace offers one-bedroom and studio apartments with exposed concrete ceilings, wood-plank luxury vinyl tile flooring, ultra large windows with city views, and a creative industrial feel that distinguishes it from other City Center residential properties.

Robert Fox, Cityplace’s community manager, provided a virtual tour of the apartments on Aug. 7, which was broadcast on live City Center Allentown’s Facebook page. It also included video interviews with residents already living at the new residential project.

Dimitris Kalahanis used to visit Allentown frequently for its restaurants, but when he learned that several of his frie nds were moving to other Allentown residential complexes like City Center’s STRATA Flats, he decided to seek an apartment at Cityplace.

“This rear view is so nice at night, let me tell you,” Kalahanis said, sitting on the couch in his Cityplace apartment living room. “You have all the lights off in the apartment, have your little ambient lighting action going, slide these blinds up, and then you have all the city lights behind you, and it is so nice in here. It’s a vibe.”

Cityplace first opened on July 9. Its south side addition is scheduled to open in spring of 2021. City Center has developed other residential communities as well, including STRATA, Center Square Lofts, Walnut Street Commons, and 520 Lofts.

City Center has also developed several Class A office buildings in downtown Allentown, including the 13-story Five City Center, the 11-story Two City Center, the 16-story 1 Center Square, the 7-story One City Center, and the 7-story Three City Center, among others.

In total, City Center has invested more than $600 million in downtown Allentown, developing 1.8 million square feet of space and 6,800 structured parking spaces to date, supporting more than 5,000 new people working downtown.