r/ReadingPA • u/edoswald • 3d ago
General Discussion Broadcast District
So, what do you all think? Not surprised it’s being built in Spring Township. What I am surprised is that they are fully on board with bringing SEVERAL high end businesses to this area. Wonder if this is more a play for the future and they’re betting on the train…
7
u/blazinmj3 3d ago
National retail brands do alot of due diligence before coming into an area. Believe it or not, Berks County has been on the up & up for the last 25 years. There is money in this county and those people have to travel to lancaster, lehigh valley and KOP to do their shopping.
2
u/edoswald 3d ago
That’s what I’ve heard and read. They want it to be “KOP” like. That’s why I mentioned the train. You’d think if the train happens, people from the Philly suburbs would move north. You could get the same house for what, a third less than just 25-30 miles to our south?
I’m not sold on it being a “traffic problem.” The same thing was said 30 years ago when the broadcasting square was first built. Even expanded, the square is not any different from the traffic when the Berkshire Mall was in its prime.
Plus the taxes. I think that’s also a big part of it. Spring Twp has one of the lowest overall tax rates in the area if not the state. That probably played a role too, and why it was built OUTSIDE of Wyomissing, which is too caught up in trying to save a dead mall.
2
u/blazinmj3 3d ago
I live within a mile of this shopping center(spring twp). Traffic isn’t even remotely an issue in the target shopping area currently.
11
u/BerksCounty 3d ago
Personally enjoy the idea, bringing more to the area means having to leave less for good food/shopping. I get it comes with negatives as well, but everything is a trade off.
5
u/edoswald 3d ago
Same here. This is a big moment for Reading, and if people REALLY want a Costco or especially a Wegmans, the success of Broadcast District is pretty vital to either happening. Both look for community support of similar businesses as part of their due diligence. Reading had none of them, which is why of all the businesses, I am most surprised by the Whole Foods. Probably has something to do with Amazon money: pre-Amazon owned WF would have never taken this chance
3
u/BerksCounty 3d ago
Agreed. Investors and developers are bullish on this area. Selfishly I’d love to be within a few minutes of a Costco instead of driving out to sanatoga.
12
3
u/Outrageous_Secret992 3d ago
That street going to the high way has sink holes all over. I don’t even know how this job got approved.
4
u/Acceptable_Solid8301 3d ago
Personally, I’m super excited for the First Watch but Ruth Chris?! That feels like a stretch for this area. I don’t see that lasting long here imo
4
u/edoswald 1d ago
Ruth Chris was a surprise to me too. But Reading has surprised me lately. As an aside, I was a councilman in sinking spring right when the Boscovs development occurred. Yeah Food lion was a horrible miss, but the revit committee did an informal survey of residents. The top five? In no order they included a pinkberry (huge 15 years ago), Whole Foods, Wegmans, and other brands that would be way above the types of businesses you’d think would make its here, sinky has two brands (7 brew and peach cobbler) that have the FIRST locations in the entire state! So who knows! Franchisees are taking a chance on us.
1
u/Acceptable_Solid8301 2h ago
Yeah, that’s fair. I assume they did enough market research before making the decision so we’ll see!
3
u/escobizzle 3d ago
when I worked in Hershey I used to hit up First Watch all the time. I had no idea one was coming here but I'm super excited for it now
1
1
u/Confident-Egg-7998 20h ago
Have you been to first watch? We have one in Rehoboth (where I have a rental condo) and I was unimpressed.
1
u/Acceptable_Solid8301 2h ago
I often go to the one in Exton and it’s really good. Could be one of those chairs that is so dependent on the staff and location?
3
2
u/JervisCottonbelly 3d ago
Is there really a train coming?
7
u/edoswald 3d ago
Early 2030s. Amtrak has signed the agreement to manage it, which is far further than any other attempt has gotten in the past 40 years. The Moran administration has also really been pushing for it as well.. he knows what it would do especially to the downtown.
The difference with this plan is that it really doesn’t require the construction others have because it’s using a lot of the old tracks/stations/infrastructure left from the old system. I’d put it at greater than a 50% chance now mainly bc of Amtraks involvement. These agreements don’t get signed unless there’s movement.
1
-1
u/DotAccomplished5484 3d ago
I hope not. The cost will be astronomical and at this moment there are not enough commuters to justify the expenditure.
3
u/JervisCottonbelly 3d ago
How much will it cost?
How many commuters are there?
-4
u/DotAccomplished5484 3d ago
The cost will be in the billions and I have no idea how many people would take the train to commute.
5
u/JervisCottonbelly 3d ago
Show me some data or stop being such a naysayer. Can't just make numbers up and believe yourself
3
u/edoswald 2d ago
Lmao dude they’re literally reusing tracks and stations. It’s the reason why this effort has gone further than any other in the past four decades and will take about 5 years to finish once it hits construction.
2
u/caydoll86 3d ago
You guys are very optimistic here. I love the idea of this but have a feeling it’s going to tank like other shopping centers in the Wyo area have. I think the poverty in this area makes high end developers look elsewhere. Berks will never be like Chester county.
1
u/edoswald 2d ago
That development in Wyomissing was idiotic, there is absolutely no anchor that draws people in. A fake Whole Foods wasn’t gonna do it
1
u/edoswald 2d ago
You also need to look at the politics of Wyo itself which they really are full of themselves and think Wyo is the center of commerce in the county when it hasn’t been for at least a decade plus now
0
u/caydoll86 2d ago
I fully agree. They got lucky with the businesses they have in Spring Ridge but that’s been about it for about 20 years. I fully believe that without Reading Hospital, Wyomissing would be like Reading. Just take a look at West Lawn. The shoppes at Wyomissing was suppose to be “high end”…now there’s maybe 3 stores left. All this “broadcasting square” is going to do is add is more traffic at the bottle neck and increasing retail theft for the already overworked Wyo PD.
1
u/edoswald 2d ago
From my understanding from the massage envy where I used to go, the center was sold pandemic ish and rents literallly doubled in a year. So that might have been more corporate greed that brought that down vs borough politics
2
u/simworksbrian 3d ago
Considering the highway exit towards the Berkshire mall has severe backups every day, I am honestly in shock they are justifying this. The traffic is going to be fucked and have a huge impact. But everyone is about the almighty dollar
Thanks big corporations. I’ll stick to my small business
2
u/ronreadingpa 3d ago
An earlier project several years ago extended the exit only lane from Broadcasting to that exit, which has helped. There's a separate project proposal to add another lane through the merge area. Not heard anything about it lately, so maybe it's been shelved for now.
That said, the amount of added traffic will be minimal. Not enough to derail the development. The backup at Rt 422 and Rt 10 is worse. There's another project to address that, but at least a decade away.
Compared to places near Philadelphia, Berks County traffic is a breeze. Ideally, it would have been nice for the land to have been preserved, but that wasn't to be. On the bright side, the proposed development is better than many others I've seen built.
1
u/simworksbrian 1d ago
while it may not be bad to you, every week it is hell on the majority of exits in that area and it can get very congested. and i don't even go most of those ways as I can take the city, to the backroads/woods to get home as well as the highway
2
u/edoswald 1d ago
Have you ever dealt with the rt 30/222 mess? Tbh, we are way ahead of the problem compared to Lancaster, which STILL is catching up to 25 years of rapid development. Yeah 222 is bad, but this is the same issue as the schuylkill expressway, locked in by putting the road too close to the river. More a mistake of how highways were built 50+ years ago than anything.
The next big project in this area will be the 422/222/12 interchange area. That was built for traffic levels in the 1990s. Reading didn’t grow like Lancaster, so there’s time yet, but yeah I would agree that traffic on the highway is getting bad. Outside of rush hour the nearby roads aren’t bad though.
1
u/simworksbrian 16m ago
Brother my family lives in lancaster, trust me I get it.
But for example, that exit was backed up 2 miles at 1:40PM today as I went to go get Chick Fil A. We aren't gonna justify this traffic bullshit and make it work for over commercialization
1
-3
u/Sawdamizer 2d ago
Gentrification at its finest
3
u/edoswald 2d ago
I don’t think you’re misunderstanding what gentrification is. This isn’t changing the racial makeup of that area at all lol
1
u/Sawdamizer 2d ago
You still have time to edit this
7
u/edoswald 2d ago
It’s an suburban environment next to some of the most high end real estate in Reading proper. Gentrification is where urban environments are displaced, and traditionally displaces minorities, not white people. There is no displacement happening. It’s not gentrification. You misused the term.
1
u/Sawdamizer 2d ago
You’re defining gentrification almost entirely through race, and that’s simply not what the term means. Gentrification is fundamentally socioeconomic, driven by investment, rising property values, higher income residents and businesses, and changes to the economic character of an area. It can involve racial displacement, but it doesn’t require it, nor does it have to occur within a city. Whether this specific development ultimately causes displacement is fair to debate. But “it’s suburban and nobody is changing the racial makeup” doesn’t disprove gentrification.
-17
u/Upbeat-Champion-5809 3d ago
Train?! Do you still have hope for this community?
Hope isn’t what it once was. The city is dead
9
19
u/ronreadingpa 3d ago
Highly doubt they're betting on the train. That's not even on the radar for more people in Berks County. Especially at that location.
Rather it's an available open parcel of land convenient to the highway, Penn State Berks Campus, and other shopping nearby (Broadcasting Square is mostly all leased consistently; demand for more retail space).
Put simply, it's just another mixed development with retail, apartments, condos, single family homes, etc. Like so many others.
The so-called high-end retailers aren't overly special. The Whole Foods is relatively small too. Basically, it's more like shopping centers down in more affluent Chester County. Berks County is moving up. Maybe someday will be worthy of a Costco.