![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/REG-L-Heim-named-new-Reading-chief-of-staff969a.jpg\")
Former Reading Police Chief William M. Heim is Mayor Eddie Moran’s pick for managing director, pending approval by City Council, Monday, July 11, 2022. (BILL UHRICH \u2014 READING EAGLE)<\/p>\nAfter sitting vacant for more than 20 years, five vacant downtown buildings may soon see new life.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Philly Office Retail is a Philadelphia-based real estate development company with holdings in Mt. Airy, Germantown, West Philadelphia, Upper Darby, Norristown and throughout the Philadelphia region.<\/p>\n
A purchase price has not yet been determined and will be based on an appraisal of the properties.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Former Reading Police Chief William M. Heim is Mayor Eddie Moran’s pick for managing director, pending approval by City Council, Monday, July 11, 2022. (BILL UHRICH \u2014 READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a long-awaited sales agreement of those buildings,\u201d Heim said. \u201cThe city\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city bought the mostly vacant and dilapidated buildings in 2013 for $2.6 million under then-Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer.<\/p>\n
The parcels totaling 1.22-acre on the northwest corner of Fifth and Penn streets are in the Callowhill Historic District.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been for sale for way too long,\u201d said Councilman O. Christopher Miller, who represents District 6 wherein the properties are located.<\/p>\n
Miller said he was impressed by a presentation the developer made to council.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of their projects did involve historic preservation,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich I think is key for this particular parcel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philly Retail plans to develop the buildings for mixed retail and office use.<\/p>\n
When the city initially set out to develop the properties in 2013, only two developers responded to the request for proposal.<\/p>\n
The city chose Our City Reading\u2019s $4.68 million proposal to turn the properties into retail space on the ground floors with apartments on the upper floors.<\/p>\n
After the relationship between the developer and then-Mayor Wally Scott soured, the agreement was repealed in 2017.<\/p>\n
A more recent attempt came in 2019, when Mayor Eddie Moran\u2019s administration worked with the Berks Alliance and Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce to put out a request for proposal. Only one developer responded.<\/p>\n
Reading administrators were reviewing another round of proposals in April 2022 when they discovered structural instabilities at 431 Penn St. next to Alvernia\u2019s CollegeTowne campus.<\/p>\n
The city took measures to stabilize and secure the site to protect the public.<\/p>\n
The precautionary measure prevents access to a walkway that runs from Penn to Court Street between the buildings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After sitting vacant for more than 20 years, five vacant downtown buildings may soon see new life. Reading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,241,182,139,28,736,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-231619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-essential-reading","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}