Fixing the Steel

If the slow death of Bethlehem Steel was tragedy, then the imminent slots-and-lofts redevelopment of its steelworks is farce.
For a few years, the abandoned acres surrounding the Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, just an hour north of Philadelphia, were the stuff of coffee-table nostalgia and regional despair. Today, a consortium of developers led by casino giant Las Vegas Sands plans to turn the former plant and 124 acres into a theme-park mix of stores, apartments, and a casino hotel. There are Disneyesque touches in the works, including a climbing wall, laser light show, and boat rides.
The Lehigh Valley is the fastest-growing region in Pennsylvania, and its proximity to New York and Philadelphia make it ripe for sprawl. The large gap between New Jersey's overheated housing market and the Lehigh Valley's still-modest costs mean it is a magnet for developers. The valley's average house price jumped 60 percent in the last five years, reaching $218,000 in the first half of 2006. Many new residents are well-off professionals who have pushed the region's average household income to more than $71,043, according to the Lehigh Valley Development Corp. The newly attractive demographics have yielded three proposals for "lifestyle centers," a euphemism for upscale malls.
Enter the Las Vegas Sands Corp. Known for its "Renaissance Venice"-theme casino on the Las Vegas Strip (with full-scale palace and working gondolas), the $25 billion casino giant revealed in 2005 that it would be the majority investor in the BethWorks plan. The fast-growing gambling company was proposing a $350 million slots parlor and convention center as the centerpiece of a revamped plan, now worth $879 million.
Thanks to revenue projections and the nearby New Jersey border, the Lehigh Valley is an odds-on favorite for one of two stand-alone slots licenses that Pennsylvania will award this year. And with recent support from the Bethlehem City Council, the Sands-led plan looks as though it has a serious chance.
But is a crowd of wealthy out-of-towners really what the community needs to keep it moving in the right direction? One Bethlehem developer envisioned his $30 million South Side loft renovation as a rental property, but as its first residents move in, more than three-quarters of its units have already sold as condos. His is one of many upscale projects under way in the old steelworkers' neighborhood. A victory for the BethWorks team would simply accelerate the high-end makeover already in progress and entomb the once-grand, gritty Bethlehem Steel in market-tested urban chic.