Architects present a new downtown vision for Catasauqua

For years, Catasauqua officials have debated what to do about 13, unused riverfront acres in the heart of their downtown.

On Monday night, they took a step toward turning it into one of township's biggest industrial and commercial developments in a half century.

Spillman Farmer Architects presented borough officials and local residents with their early visions for the former F.L. Smidth site the municipality bought in 2013.

Two different versions have taken shape, both of which would transform the four-block-long defunct manufacturer into upscale apartments, townhouses and boutiques. The borough will use these diagrams and wish lists to develop a master plan, which will help them craft the right zoning laws and policies to woo developers into the site.

But the piece borough officials talked about most, the part some have been dreaming of for 40 years, are new homes for the fire and police departments and municipal offices.

That's why Catasauqua finally opted to buy the land after years of debate. F.L. Smidth bought the property, which was once the Crane Ironworks in 2001. When it closed up its manufacturing shop in 2005, 70 people worked there.

By then, Catasauqua emergency officials had been operating out of aging inadequate facilities for decades. Sites were earmarked to build new facilities and later scrapped. Meanwhile, strapped for space, police park their bicycles in jail cells and firefighters make due with aging infrastructure.

Spillman would put brand new offices in the northern Pine Street bridge side of a new development park they're calling The Ironworks.

Elliot Nolter, a Catasauqua Area High School graduate and a Spillman architect working on a master plan, created a development plan albeit a different one for the defunct factory as part of a school project at Penn State University.

Nolter favors embracing the site's industrial past. Plans call for creating a central park area that incorporates old railroad trestles the factory once used.

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Architects present a new downtown vision for Catasauqua