READING — Berks County is moving forward with the purchase of the former Wells Fargo Bank building in Reading as it prepares to move employees and services out of the downtown courthouse at least temporarily.
The county will offer $7.2 million for the property at 600 Penn St. That’s less than the current building owner initially wanted, but the fair market value for the property based on two real estate assessments, officials told Spotlight PA this week.
“As a government entity, we can only pay the appraised value of a property based on county codes,” county Chief Operations Officer Kevin Barnhardt said.
About three years ago, Berks authorized a study to look into how to better allocate resources between its main office spaces. That initial study led to a partial move of services to the South Campus in Mohnton and the beginning of conversations about how to renovate the buildings downtown.
However, an assessment earlier this year found unexpected issues, including asbestos, at the courthouse, raising projected costs by about $100 million. That led the county to shift its plans to purchase the Penn Street building and change the scope of the renovations.
At a Tuesday workshop meeting, the Berks County Board of Commissioners approved a letter of intent to purchase the building, which formalizes the county’s plan and permits the start of contract negotiations.
As those talks start with building owner Alan Shuman, a third-party architecture firm will simultaneously work on a plan for how to shuffle employees between the new property, the current services center, and the courthouse.
It has not been decided whether some moves to 600 Penn will be permanent, and many details remain undecided. However, commissioners lauded the county’s new focus on prioritizing the courthouse renovations.
Here’s what we know so far:
Have the plans for the courthouse changed?
Yes.
County operations staff said they first learned about major problems with the 19-story building through an engineering review conducted earlier this year.
Officials announced plans in May to convert the services building into a “judicial center” where most court operations would take place. Under that plan, employees who work in the services facility — including the commissioners, legal department, and finance office — would have been moved to the new building at 600 Penn, and the costly courthouse renovation (around $135 million) would have been indefinitely pushed to when the county could afford it.
Officials said at the time that moving services and keeping the courthouse in a “state of stasis” was the most fiscally responsible action.
Commissioners said that the plan never included the sale or demolition of the courthouse. Still, Berks County residents largely responded to the announcement with concern that the historic building would be torn down or left to deteriorate.
The county has since switched gears. Officials said they plan to focus first on the courthouse and narrow the scope of planned renovations to the services center.
Commissioners cleared the way Tuesday for the third-party architecture firm to develop a plan on how to best relocate employees between the services center and 600 Penn.
“Things happen. Things change, and our information became more clear that we really need to focus on the courthouse,” Barnhardt told Spotlight PA.
Still, the renovation of the historic building will not happen immediately. Barnhardt declined to comment on how exactly it will play out.
“We want to be generic in not saying things that people then, with the public or the media … say, ‘Well, you told us this,’” Barnhardt said. “So we want to stop doing the supposition and say ‘We're really going to give you facts when we have the facts.’”
Why does the courthouse need renovations?
The reasons for renovating the courthouse have not changed, even if the timeline has.
The new goal is to renovate the courthouse sooner because of issues that require “dire attention,” Barnhardt said. The nearly 100-year-old building has a number of safety concerns, including asbestos-covered pipes and mechanical line issues.
In modern buildings, such issues can sometimes be isolated while repairs happen. The courthouse, however, would have to be completely evacuated if any of its internal systems failed, like HVAC, plumbing, or electrical, Barnhardt told commissioners.
Bringing the building up to code requires far more than the cosmetic upgrades it received in the 1990s. Beyond safety issues, major changes mean the building will lose its “grandfather status” that allows it to operate without being fully ADA compliant (no restrooms on some floors, accessibility issues, etc.).
Officials did not specify on Tuesday whether all of the $135 million in estimated renovations will take place or what changes will be prioritized.
“We do not want to be a group that decides to kick the can down the road,” Barnhardt said.
How long will it take to move employees and renovate the courthouse?
In May, officials estimated it will take between eight and 10 years for the county to have the financial capacity to consider $135 million in courthouse upgrades.
It’s unclear if or how that timeline will change.
Barnhardt did not want to publicly commit to a schedule for the move to 600 Penn or the renovations, but he noted the full process will take “a number of years.”
“It's going to be a long path that we're configured, but we're going to have buy-in and support from everyone as we go forward,” he said. “There could be some obvious alteration of timing based on hiccups we have with some of the environments, but we certainly want to make sure everyone's satisfied with where they're going to end up either permanently or temporarily.”
What will it cost to buy 600 Penn St.?
The county hired a private real estate broker and an appraiser to perform fair market value assessments of the building. The estimated purchase price of $7.235 million is the average of the two, Barnhardt said.
Spotlight PA has submitted a records request for the county’s appraisal reports and contracts. Publicly available property records show that Shuman purchased the building in 2021 for $3.2 million from the Greater Berks Development Fund. The property’s assessed tax value is just over $1.4 million.
The county approached Shuman earlier in the year with the idea. At a Tuesday workshop meeting, commissioners approved a letter of intent to purchase the building, which formalizes the county’s plan and permits the start of contract negotiations.
“It's like buying a house. This is just a much bigger house,” Barnhardt said. “There are details to be worked out, but it gave legal and Alan [Shuman] at least the understanding that we have an intent to purchase that building. It's no longer in the ether.”
County Finance Director Laura Jones outlined multiple cost scenarios for buying the building instead of leasing it. She said the county would save at most $12 million over 10 years with the purchase if considering a gross lease at $15 per square foot with a 2.5% inflation rate on the price per square foot and on utilities.
Will the purchase impact the City of Reading?
The purchase of the Penn Street building does have wider implications. As a government-owned building, the county would not pay property taxes on it, impacting the city’s anticipated revenue from a major commercial property.
Mayor Eddie Morán said in May that he was “extremely frustrated” by the proposal and its potential impact on the downtown area.
What comes next?
Beers + Hoffman Architecture has worked with the county since the beginning of the process. The company conducted a space study for the county in 2023 and helped plan the partial move to the South Campus building. A representative for the firm said Tuesday the team will take the next few months to plan where employees will move between the three downtown buildings should the purchase of 600 Penn proceed.
The Penn Street property is being imagined primarily as a temporary space, but Barnhardt said some departments, like election services, which already rents part of the building, may reside there permanently. He declined to discuss a time frame or cost estimate, as details are still being decided.
“We don't want to get pinned down to dates and pricing because it's, again, it's wide open right now,” Barnhardt said.