'We want to be a good neighbor': New PPL Tower owner plans to 'pay homage' to iconic holiday lights display

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The new owner of the old PPL Tower building at Ninth and Hamilton Streets has no plans to be a Grinch this holiday season.

Especially when it comes to a beloved tradition for the city and the Lehigh Valley.

Nicholas Dye, owner of D&D Realty, said it's not possible to keep the building's long-running holiday lights — the east side a Christmas tree, the west a flickering candle — glowing in their current state once the 96-year-old building is converted to a residential structure.

"That's just obviously not practical," Dye told Allentown Planning Commission on Tuesday.

But it doesn't mean the lights are going away.

They'll be lit this season — without D&D's involvement — Dye said.

And after?

Dye said they're working on two ideas to "pay homage" to the traditional lights at the PPL Tower, beginning what should be a new tradition for Allentonians and many others who looked forward to seeing them each year.

How did we get here?

The update on the fate of the iconic display — 12 stories tall and visible for miles — has been up in the air for some time.

In July, the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the sale of the building and complex at 2 N. 9th St. to the Wilkes-Barre-based D&D Realty Group.

That sale is expected to close in a few months, Dye said, but the building has been vacant since PPL relocated its corporate headquarters to Two City Center, 645 Hamilton St.

D&D said it planned to transform the 322-feet-high structure into mixed-use commercial space, including apartments and other uses.

And that's where problems with the lights begin.

A time-honored tradition

The display was estimated to have started as early as the 1930s, shortly after PPL Tower was built. Back then, colored cellophane was used over the glass windows.

By the late 1940s, the illumination depicted a wreath as a symbol of joy and unity.

By the 1990s, colored shades and fluorescent lights helped the tower glow each season. But they eventually were replaced by LED lights on specially designed window shades, which had to be drawn by hand at the end of each day.

With 102 windows used, along 660 linear feet of LED light fixtures holding 10,000 lights, Dye said there was no hope of keeping the current tradition alive.

But he's not about to dim the glow of the holidays in Allentown.

"We want to be a good neighbor coming into town," Dye told LehighValleyNews.com.

"Clearly, it's something that's important to everyone, so that means it's important to us, too."