Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

Pottstown is a Borough in Montgomery County, located 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia. In 1975 Pottstown’s Bethlehem Steel plant closed. In 1980, Firestone’s tire factory closed. 3,000 workers in a Borough of 9,000 households were thrown out of work. Pottstown Borough | Montgomery County | City Manager Form of Government with a Mayor and 7 Member Borough Council Since 1986, Pottstown has commissioned a series of plans and studies to advise the Borough on how to attract jobs and people. In fact, the Borough has spent over $500,000 on 15 revitalization plans by outside consultants, including: • Development Strategies Plan, 1989, Urban Land Institute Pottstown by the Numbers Population (2000): 21,859 Population Change in the 1990’s: .1% Racial Composition: 78% White Non-Hispanic; 15% Black, 5% Hispanic Median household income: $35,785 Housing 56% Owner Occupied Units; 44% Rental units Median house value: $87,600 Percent of housing built before 1960: 78% Industries: Manufacturing (20.3%), educational, health and social services (18.3%), retail trade (12.7%), professional, scientiﬁc, management, administrative and waste management services (10.5%) Commuters: Daytime population change due to commuting: +1,453 (+6.6%) Workers who live and work in this city: 2,888 (28.0%) • Downtown Comprehensive Plan, 1994, Urban Partners, consultant • Pottstown Open Space Plan, 1996, Robert Bartmann, AICP, consultant • College Park District Plan, 1998, Urban Research & Development Corp., consultant • Community & Economic Development Plan, 2000, Urban Partners, consultant The plans would make “a little splash” and then be forgotten, said Tom Hylton, chairman of the Borough Planning Commission and a Pulitzer prize winning author. “You do a study and then everybody wants to do another study,” he said. “They don’t want to pay attention to the study that was done.” 69 In 2000, 40 Pottstown community and business leaders joined together to create a strategic plan they named “Pottstown Community and Economic Development Priorities.” The planning process was funded by a regional bank foundation, a boarding school located in Pottstown, the County and the Borough. Looking at their assets, the group identiﬁed the Montgomery County Community College West Campus, the Hill School, an afﬂuent boarding school, and the Pottstown Memorial Medical Center. The Medical Center was bought by a private company in July 2003 and the purchase price endowed an $80 million foundation to fund better access to health and an improved physical and social environment in the Tri-County area. The leaders identiﬁed Pottstown’s weaknesses as its vacant and underutilized properties, high number of rental units and stagnant market with few sales over the past two decades. At the end of the planning process, which included intensive community input, a plan was formed that contained 30 speciﬁc initiatives, eleven of which were given a high priority. One of these 11 high priority initiatives was the redevelopment of the Security Trust Building – an old ﬁve-story bank building that for more than 20 years had sat vacant at the corner of High Street (Pottstown’s Main Street) and Hanover, the main downtown. A second was the reuse of Mrs. Smith’s Pies Property. When Mrs. Smith’s left in 2001, the company left 11 buildings on 13.5 acres right on Hanover Street one block away from the Security Trust Building. Three others were the rehabilitation of the Hanover Street Bridge, off of Route 422; the continued improvement to the Schuylkill River greenway adjacent to recently created KOZ property (currently home to 84 Lumber’s distribution center); and the construction of a pedestrian tunnel connecting Montgomery County Community College’s Pottstown campus with Pottstown’s downtown. Because of the breadth of Pottstown’s planned redevelopment activities and the potential for genuine impact, the Community Action Team Revitalizing Downtown Geographic Focus of Projects for Impact: Downtown Strategic Plan: Redevelop Key Downtown Area around Vacant Historic Building High Impact Project: $3.5 Million Redevelopment of Security Trust Building Project Funders: Wolﬁngton Development Company, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Borough of Pottstown, Montgomery County Timeline: Building Completed Other Projects Proposed or Completed in Close Proximity to Leverage High Impact Project: Redevelopment of 13.5 Acre Mrs. Smith’s Pies Site Assets Leveraged: Downtown, New Pottstown Town Center GOAL FOUR: APPLY STRATEGIES THAT WORK Pottstown 58

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

PA Community Revitalization Desktop Guide Table of Contents How To Attract High Impact Investment to Core Communities Goal One: Choose One Asset-Rich Redevelopment Area Interviews with Pennsylvania Mayors Goal Two: Prepare Redevelopment Area for Market Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Three: Welcome Investment Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Four: Apply Strategies That Work Conclusion

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.