After sitting vacant for more than 20 years, five vacant downtown buildings may soon see new life.
Reading City Council at a meeting Monday authorized the execution of a sales agreement with Philly Office Retail for the properties at 431 to 443 Penn St.
A purchase price has not yet been determined and will be based on the properties’ assessments, City Auditor Maria Rodriguez said.
An independent appraiser will be used, said William Heim, city operating manager, noting that a second appraisal may be needed if an agreement cannot be reached. If that is the case, the price will be based on an average of the two appraisals.
“This is a long-awaited sales agreement of those buildings,” Heim said. “The city’s administration and Philly Office Retail have been discussing this for the better part of a year and came up with a sales agreement that is satisfactory to the administration, to the buyer, and, hopefully, to City Council to get this project moving and restore those historic buildings to the former glory.”
The city bought the mostly vacant and dilapidated buildings in 2013 for $2.6 million under then-Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer.
The parcels totaling 1.22-acre on the northwest corner of Fifth and Penn streets are in the Callowhill Historic District.
“It’s been for sale for way too long,” said Councilman O. Christopher Miller, who represents District 6 wherein the properties are located.
Miller said he was impressed by a presentation the developer made to council.
“A lot of their projects did involve historic preservation,” he said, “which I think is key for this particular parcel.”
Philly Retail plans to develop the buildings for mixed retail and office use.
When the city initially set out to develop the properties in 2013, only two developers responded to the request for proposal.
The city chose Our City Reading’s $4.68 million proposal to turn the properties into retail space on the ground floors with apartments on the upper floors.
After the relationship between the developer and then-Mayor Wally Scott soured, the agreement was repealed in 2017.
A more recent attempt came in 2019, when Mayor Eddie Moran’s administration worked with the Berks Alliance and Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce to put out a request for proposal. Only one developer responded.
Reading administrators were reviewing another round of proposals in April 2022 when they discovered structural instabilities at 431 Penn St. next to Alvernia’s CollegeTowne campus.
The city took measures to stabilize and secure the site to protect the public.
The precautionary measure prevents access to a walkway that runs from Penn to Court Street between the buildings.
Source: Berkshire mont
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