Lower Mac Answers LVPC Costco TIF Concerns

The jury is still out as to whether the Lehigh Valley will get its first Costco next year through the proposed $140 million Hamilton Crossings project in Lower Macungie Township, planned for 63 acres along Krocks Road between Hamilton Boulevard and the Route 222 bypass.

when the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission expressed a series of concerns about the Hamilton Crossings shopping center, including the amount of traffic stress it would put onto the bypass.

According to a post by Lower Macungie Township Board of Commissioner Ryan Conrad on the Lower Macungie Patch Facebook page, Sara Paindl, the township's planning director, has written a leter that Conrad says refutes all of the LVPC's concerns.

Click here to read the letter in full.

The next step in the approval process for the Hamilton Crossings TIF Financing Plan will happen Wednesday, when the Lehigh County Commissioners vote on the plan.

East Penn School District has already approved the TIF plan and the township Board of Commissioners is expected to vote on the TIF later this month. The Lower Mac BOC is the third and final taxing body that needs to approve the TIF for it to move forward.

According to the way the TIF will work if ultimately approved, the government bodies that will benefit from the tax revenue generated by Hamilton Crossings – East Penn School District and Lehigh County – agree to forgo a portion of those tax dollars for a set time period to help the developer pay for whatever bonds or loans are needed to bankroll the project to get it off the ground.