ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WLVT) - The DaVinci Science Center announced plans Friday to expand and build a new facility on Hamilton St. in downtown Allentown.
The DaVinci Science Center is currently located on Cedar Crest College’s campus, but executive director and CEO, Lin Erickson, said moving downtown will give them a chance to serve more students in their own backyard.
“We’re envisioning something called the STEM career ladder program,” said Erickson. “We’re working with kids starting in middle school through high school, where they’re getting exposure to the sciences and potentially new opportunities in local companies.”
Previously, the science center had plans to expand to downtown Easton, but Erickson said they had to shift gears. “We worked for a long time with the City of Easton, and ultimately the city was not able to provide the financial support and the site that they had originally committed,” said Erickson. “Then we began looking at other sites across Lehigh and Northampton counties.”
The new center will be located on Hamilton St. between Eighth and Ninth Streets. It comes in a line of new development for downtown Allentown after the new ADP building and the Downtown Allentown Market recently opened.
“Often people look at this economic development tool as just a tool for folks to build office buildings and expensive apartments. That was never the intention,” said Representative Peter Schweyer. “We always wanted to make sure that everybody in downtown Allentown was going to be able to participate, and having an organization like DaVinci is going to do wonders.”
Erickson said they are still in the architectural phase of this project. They are expecting construction to begin in 2021, and they plan to have the center open by 2023.
