Category:Parkway Shopping Center, Allentown, Pennsylvania

The Parkway Shopping Center on Lehigh Street in Southwest Allentown was first proposed in 1954 by Roscoe Q. Jarrett Sr., a realator and land developer in Allentown. His idea for a shopping center was for a group of retail stores to be attached to the new Food Fair supermarket which opened at 1501 Lehigh Street the year before in 1953. The concept was first experimented with in the United States during 1946 with a few dozen shops connected by a covered pedestrian walkway in the front that included parking for cars. The Parkway Shopping Center was the first connected shopping center in Allentown, although the Jordan Park Shopping Center was built in 1955. Jordan Park was also formed around a supermarket, Penn Fruit, however instead of an interconnected group of outside stores, the stores were seperate and spread out over an area.

Jarrett tried selling the concept for a few years, and in 1958, he managed to put together a proposal for Food Fair to be connected with:

• A branch of the Merchants National Bank
• W T Grant Department Store
• F W Woolworth Department Store
• Kinney Shoes
• Rea & Derick Drug
• about 10 other smaller stores.

Food Fair, Woolworths and W T Grant would be the "anchors" for the shopping center. A later addition of a 32 lane bowling alley was added to the proposal. In July 1958, Mayor Donald V. Hock turned the first shovel of dirt and construction began. The Parkway Shopping Center featured an "L" design of buildings with a continous outside covered walkway 12 feet wide, covering 18 1/2 acres. It opened to the public on May 20th, 1959.

Within a year, Jarrett developed two additional shopping centers, both of which were built along the same lines as the Parkway. The 15th and Allen Streets shopping center opened in December 1959. This was also attached to an existing Food Fair Supermarket. Crest Plaza, which opened in August 1960, was the first shopping center built from scratch with no existing previous structure, although Crest Plaza had both a Weis Market and a Food Fair as 'anchor' stores in the complex. The first enclosed shopping mall would open in September 1966, the Whitehall Mall.

Over the years, tennants have come and gone and the Parkway Shopping Center remains a vibrant part of the south Allentown retail shopping and buisness community. Several "satellite" stores have been located over the years in the area as well. Roscoe Q. Jarrett Sr. passed in Allentown at age 90 in December, 1985, with many successful land developments accomplished in the Allentown area.