Berks County officials are moving forward with plans to buy an office building in downtown Reading, a move that will allow the county to temporarily relocate some departments to make way for a major renovation project at the historic courthouse.
The commissioners at a meeting Tuesday unanimously approved executing a letter of intent to purchase the four-story, 130,000-square-foot former Wells Fargo building at 600 Penn St. from local developer Alan Shuman.
A purchase price will be determined once fair market value is established pursuant to the requirements and procedures set forth in the county code for buying property.
Chief Operations Officer Kevin Barnhardt said a study of the county’s properties done over the past several years show that the courthouse and county services center are in serious need of renovations.
The most pressing need, he said, is addressing the worsening mechanical and structural issues inside the 1931 courthouse.
Berks County is now planning much-needed renovations of the county services center and courthouse. (Bill Uhrich – Reading Eagle)
“We all know that it’s nearly 100 years old and has significant deficiencies that were identified by engineers,” he said. “There are serious safety concerns.
“If there is a failure of any of the systems — whether that be electric, water, sanitary or HVAC — we would be required by code to vacate the building. We don’t want to be the group that decides to kick the can down the road and then something catastrophic happens. So we decided on a proactive approach.”
The idea, Barnhardt said, is to purchase the building at 600 Penn and use it as a space to house various county departments in order to be able to completely vacate the courthouse. Once the courthouse is finished, the plan is to repopulate it.
At this point, Barnhardt said, there is not yet a cost estimate or timeline for the courthouse project, nor is there a plan for which departments will temporarily move to 600 Penn.
A ‘thoughtful’ decision
The commissioners said they did not come to the decision to buy 600 Penn easily.
“There has been a lot of time and thought put into this,” Commissioner Michael Rivera said.
Commissioner Dante Santoni Jr. said the county’s leadership team has been working on the plan to purchase the building and renovate the courthouse for a long time.
“This certainly wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “I know we looked at a number of different scenarios and I want to commend all those involved in this.”
As for the need for the project at the courthouse, Rivera said the age of the building has forced the county’s hand.
“I know that a lot of people have been asking why the county didn’t maintain the courthouse over the years,” he said. “Well, the county has maintained it, but there are only certain repairs that can be made to a 100-year-old building while it is in use.
“The best way to make the kind of renovations that are needed is to do it all at the same time to ensure that it is done right and that they will last.”
Commissioner Christian Leinbach said the work at the courthouse won’t happen overnight, and is only a piece of a long-term vision.
“This is just the beginning of a major project that is going to take place over many years — that’s the reality,” he said. “This will be a long process. We have made a very clear decision to keep the courthouse, focus on the courthouse, and that’s our starting point.”
To that end, the commissioners approved hiring the Lancaster-based architectural firm Beers + Hoffman to help create a phased master plan for the downtown renovation project that will include work at the courthouse, services center and 600 Penn.
The commissioners also approved moving forward with buying 600 Penn, opting against an alternative option of leasing the property.
Laura Jones, county chief financial officer, said her team was tasked with determining whether it made more financial sense for the county to purchase or lease 600 Penn.
According to their estimate, Jones said, the county could save roughly $12 million over the next decade by purchasing the building. That is in part due to the county’s ability to negotiate utility prices, she said, as well as the county’s ability to use bonds to complete minor renovations of the building.
“Financially, it makes more sense to buy that building,” she said. “And what this doesn’t include is the fact that we will then have an asset after all this that we can repurpose or sell.”
Change of direction
Tuesday’s discussion of renovating the courthouse is a departure from plans announced this year by the county.
In early May, when the county’s interest in the former Wells Fargo building were first announced, county officials said the cost to modernize the courthouse has been rapidly escalating, with estimates exceeding $130 million. Those costs are driven not only by planned improvements, but by the immense challenge of replacing and bringing up to modern building codes more than 19 floors of aging, century-old infrastructure.
Officials said at that time that the county would instead purchase the building at 600 Penn and convert it into a county government center to avoid that costly project. It was estimated renovations to the building would cost $35 million.
A statement released by the county said 600 Penn would house many of the county departments currently in the services center, allowing that building to be converted into a county judicial center that would house the courts, judges’ chambers, court administration, sheriff’s office, district attorney’s office and probation department.
The county’s plan has now appeared to have changed, with officials saying Tuesday that 600 Penn will be used as “flex space” while renovations to the courthouse are undertaken. A timeline and cost estimate of that project have not been provided.
“Our goal is to renovate, preserve and repopulate the historic Berks County Courthouse,” Barnhardt said.
The county’s initial interest in 600 Penn received blowback from members of Reading City Council, who during a May meeting expressed concerns about the loss of tax revenue created by the county buying the building and loss of economic development opportunities.