Residents Can Help Plan City's Eastern Gateway

The city is asking residents to participate in a project to enhance the look and use of what is being called the Bethlehem Eastern Gateway, the first part of the city that is seen when entering from Interstate 78 and Route 412.

The Eastern Gateway Great Visioning Party will be held Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at , 1210 E. Fourth St.

There and then, consultants from Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit and nationally-renowned designer of urban space, will lead an exercise in which neighborhood stakeholders will be asked to identify what gives that portion of Bethlehem its identity and how to best enhance it.

As part of the exercise, participants will be asked to venture out into the neighborhood and identify things that give it a distinct character. The organizers are calling it an “interactive placemaking game.”

“They have tools that are designed to get the creative process flowing,” said Ellen Larmer, the director of the Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem, which is one of the city’s partners in its Southside Vision 2014, a 12-year-program launched in 2002 to address issues and opportunities in South Bethlehem.

Larmer said the visioning session represents a “tremendous opportunity” for the neighborhood to work with some of the country’s best experts in urban planning. Project for Public Spaces has put its stamp on Rockefeller Center and Times Square in New York, Boston’s Market District and Logan Circle in Philadelphia.

The flier for the event says there will be food for participants and free childcare for parents who attend.

The idea of the Eastern Gateway enhancement plan is to draw visitors from Route 412 and Daly Avenue into the neighborhood. Those enhancements could include the creation of new public space, new signs, streetscape improvements and other ways to market the neighborhood to visitors.

The gateway runs parallel to the new high profile development at the . It includes the, the developing South Bethlehem Greenway from Daly Avenue to Fifth Street and from Hayes Street to the Daly Avenue Bridge.

Southside Vision 2014 is funded through the sale of tax credits facilitated by Community Action and sold to , Spectrum Health Ventures Inc. of the , PPL Corp. and .