A longtime Allentown resident is proposing a mixed-use development behind the historic John Imlay Mansion that would bring new shops, food businesses, a brewery, residential space and a visitor center to South Main Street.
The tentative name of the project is Imlay Square, after the mansion at 28 S. Main St.
Applicant Will Borkowski is scheduled to appear before the Allentown Planning Board in August and September. For updates on the the hearing date, checl the borough website at allentownboronj.com. The town is expected to accept the application and the required public notice before the project is placed on a meeting agenda, and plans should be available for review by the public.
The new buildings would be constructed behind the mansion and arranged around an off-street parking area. The historic structure along Main Street would remain untouched and continue to be the most prominent building on the property.
“I didn’t want to see big structures in the back that were overtaking the historic structures,” Borkowski said. “Everything that’s going to be new is scaled down compared to the historic structures on Main Street. So it would be like a stepping-down process.”
The proposal includes retail and office space, two small food-related businesses, a brewery and residential space. The number of residential units has not been finalized.
An existing garage would be converted to commercial use. Borkowski said the new construction would be difficult to see from Main Street until visitors enter the parking area behind the mansion.
“You’ll get this sense of a square, which is a place of safety if you’re trying to park and get your kids out of the car,” he said.
He said the architectural plans and early renderings have gone through the borough’s historic preservation review process. More detailed plans will return for additional review as the project moves forward.
Borkowski has served on local boards and committees during his 25 years in Allentown, including the Historic Preservation Review Commission and the school board. His work on the historic commission, he said, shaped his approach to the property.
“I was on the first committee, historic preservation, and got a real feel for why, what’s going on,” Borkowski said.
He said he wants the project to support the independent businesses that have traditionally defined Allentown’s downtown rather than attract national chains.
“We’re really a small-business type of a community,” he said. “We don’t cater to the franchises.”
Borkowski said owner-operated businesses offer something that cannot easily be duplicated by a chain store.
“They know what’s going on next door,” he said. “When some customer comes in, they fill them in on all the news of the day of the town. Not just, ‘Hey, this is my product.’ They can assist them in other ways and find what they are looking for.”
One proposed food business would focus on breakfast and morning service. Another would operate later in the day. Both would be smaller than some of the borough’s established restaurants and cafes.
Borkowski said his interest in food was one of the reasons he began developing the proposal.
“You know, I love food, honestly, and I think we could use a couple more different places,” he said.
His daughter, who has a master’s degree and is studying nutrition, is considering opening a business that would counsel clients about dietary needs and prepare meals suited to those needs.
A brewery also has expressed interest in the evening food space. Borkowski said it would be a small operation where customers could eat, have a beer and spend time in town. Some beer would be brewed on-site.
“I don’t mind saying that there’s a brewery interested in the evening food side,” he said. “It could be a place where you hang out, have a beer.”
The goal, Borkowski said, is to give visitors more reasons to remain in Allentown instead of walking through the downtown stores and leaving after a short visit.
He said someone can sometimes finish shopping in the borough within about a half-hour. Adding more places to eat, a brewery and a historical attraction could extend that visit and generate additional customers for businesses throughout downtown.
“You want to have them sit down, talk, and then they may think about, ‘Let’s take a walk down Main Street,’” he said.
A visitor center and small museum would be another major part of the project. Borkowski said the space would be provided at no cost to the borough or any organization involved in operating it.
The center would give residents and visitors a regular place to learn about Allentown’s historic buildings, military history, cemetery, parks and role in the Revolutionary era.
Borkowski said the borough, library and residents have collected extensive historical material, but there is no central location where the public can regularly see it.
“We have a lot of history that has been donated to the town,” he said. “The library holds a lot of it, and we want to start to display it in an area.”
The center could include rotating exhibitions built around documents, photographs, property deeds, newspaper archives and other materials held by the library and local residents.
“We could do a special exhibition on something in town, put that out for four months for people to see, and then rotate it back and put out the next one,” Borkowski said.
He envisions the visitor center as a starting point for people who want to explore Allentown, rather than as a replacement for the borough’s existing tours, carriage rides and historic programs.
Allentown has more than 180 preserved historic home sites, Borkowski said, but people unfamiliar with the community may not know where to begin.
“Unless you’re going to one of the tours, the carriage rides, that happens once or twice a year, and it’s limited seat,” he said. “So this would be an opportunity to come here like five days a week.”
The center also could direct visitors to recorded walking tours that explain the histories of individual homes, veterans memorials, the cemetery and other sites.
Borkowski said he would like those recordings to feature local residents telling the stories in their own voices.
“People that tell the story, not AI telling it for you, it’s more personal,” he said. “A resident tells the history of the town.”
The mansion that gives Imlay Square its tentative name was built around 1790 by John Imlay, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant involved in the West Indies trade.
The approximately 8,000-square-foot Georgian Colonial mansion has 15 rooms, 11 of them with open fireplaces. Its oak framework was built by craftsmen who also worked on Congress Hall in Philadelphia.
The John Imlay Mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It stands along what was once York Road, part of the stagecoach route between New York and Philadelphia.
Borkowski said the parking area would serve the new businesses and residences, although the application may require relief from some of the borough’s parking requirements.
Providing spaces behind the buildings also would reduce the project’s reliance on curbside parking, he said. Customers who currently park on Main Street to visit businesses on the property would instead be able to use the new lot.
“Because I’ll have parking for the new businesses, it will provide new parking that would not have been there if I didn’t build the parking lot,” he said.
Borkowski initially considered a larger brewery and distillery proposal for the property four or five years ago. He spent nearly two years working on that concept, but the agreement with the prospective operator eventually fell apart.
He then returned to his original idea for a smaller mixed-use project.
“I immediately, you know, maybe was depressed for about two hours with all that work and time we committed,” he said. “And then I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to go back to my original idea.’”
The revised proposal took another two years to develop.
Borkowski is an engineer by training and has renovated older properties in Allentown, Lambertville and Doylestown. He said he once considered studying architecture but chose engineering because it provided a more practical career path.
He does not consider himself a traditional developer.
“I’m the sole developer,” he said. “I don’t call myself a developer. I’m just basically an engineer.”
Borkowski said he prefers to renovate properties gradually and place tenants into completed spaces rather than construct empty buildings without a clear use.
“I’ll build out a little at a time and get a tenant in there and have a complete building and have the energy inside the building,” he said. “I like seeing people starting a business, and getting that new space makes me happy.”
He also wanted to take on the project himself because he feared a future property owner might build something that did not reflect Allentown’s historic character or the work residents have done to preserve it.
“I wanted to do it so it’s not actually prevented from someone else messing it up,” he said. “That’s not what we do in this town.”
Construction would begin only after the project receives the necessary approvals and permits. Borkowski expects the work to be completed in stages rather than all at once.
The project has taken several years to reach the Planning Board, but Borkowski said the process helped him refine the plans and learn how to navigate the land-use process.
“You learn from making mistakes,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake.”“It’s taking me time,” Borkowski added. “But I do have time on my side.”
