On the evening of January 15th community and business leaders of South Bethlehem gathered to celebrate the achievements and future of the SouthSide Arts District. Downtown Manager, Missy Hartney greeted the crowd and laid out the plans ahead for the Arts District. “We are about to start a new 5-year plan – with the overall outcome being the SouthSide Arts District becoming a nationally accredited and designated Main Street Program with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.  With your help, we will become a nationally recognized community, a role model for business districts across the country. And we want you to be a part of drafting this new plan. Because we are the SouthSide Arts District. All of us – working together.”

Hartney, along with committee chairs Lisa Jordan of Touchstone Theatre, Monika Samuelsson of Lehigh University and Stacie Brennan of the Banana Factory went on to discuss the current plan’s 2018 achievements, their goals for 2019 and their hope that more merchants and members of the community will join them as they begin to construct new ideas to be nationally known.