Greater Reading Chamber Commerce Quarterly Summer 2017 - 6

feature

one week in reading
Randy Peers, President & CEO - Greater Reading Chamber & Economic Development Corporation

t was the week of April 3rd,
and the always popular Berks
Jazz Fest was already underway,
but it was the four other major
announcements that week that
would make Reading the envy of
almost any other third tier city.
As the newly minted President &
CEO of our combined Chamber
of Commerce and Economic
Development organizations, the
week of April 3rd represented a
week I will not soon forget.

That week I stood with
several of our elected officials
and representatives from the
Community First Fund to
celebrate the announcement that
the Abe Lincoln Hotel Project
was approved for over $8 million in New Market tax credits that
will create 60 full-time jobs in addition to 92 construction jobs. This
project, a repurposing of the original historic hotel into a mixeduse commercial and residential building, highlights the type of new
development that I believe can become the future of downtown
development. Middle-income apartments with ground floor retail,
a restaurant, and parking space is the type of place that will directly
appeal to the young professionals we want to attract to downtown
Reading, helping to make our downtown a true 24/7 Live, Work
and Play community.
It was also announced that week that the World Cycling League
(WCL) and Albright College planned to locate the WCL's $20
million world headquarters at an indoor velodrome that would
be built on a seven-acre site owned by the college. The National
Velodrome and Events Center, a 2,500-seat, high-tech cycling arena,
will be only the second indoor velodrome in the United States
and the first one on the East Coast - right here in Reading! This
amazing project will leverage the already developing cycling interest
in Berks County, and provide a multi-purpose venue that will be
used for athletic training and other events such as smaller concerts
and performances.

6 COMMERCE QUARTERLY SUMMER 2017

The Buttonwood Street Bridge also reopened that week - well
in advance of construction beginning on the Penn Street Bridge. If
you have not ventured over the bridge yet, take a ride or walk. The
infrastructure improvement is impressive, and the river views are
some of the nicest in the city.
Most impressive that week, however, was the parade honoring
the Reading High Basketball Team - our champions! If you made
it to the incredible event, you would have seen people of diverse
backgrounds there to celebrate pure Reading pride, or as Reading
School District has coined it - #RSDProud. Winning the State
Championship brought people together in a way I have not seen
in my short tenure in Berks County. The pride and the excitement
was, to me, indicative of new energy in Greater Reading. In my
conversations with stakeholders all over our community, I keep
hearing people express a sense of optimism and purpose that would
be the envy of any place in the USA. The team at the Greater
Reading Chamber & Economic Development Corp. (GRCEDC)
is proud to be helping to generate this new energy. In the end, we
just may well point to the week of April 3rd, 2017 as the week we
turned the corner in Greater Reading!

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Greater Reading Chamber Commerce Quarterly Summer 2017