Why is Berks County Community Foundation building a building?  

Like most community foundations, Berks County Community Foundation’s impact on the community vastly exceeds its visibility.  The primary reason to create a permanent headquarters building is to increase the Community Foundation’s visibility.   While you can’t typically “see” a grant, residents of the community will be able to see the building, a constant reminder of the Community Foundation’s work.

Closely related to this is a desire to project an image of permanence and stability to the donor community.  Many charitable organizations exist to fill needs that are (at least hopefully) temporary. All of us look forward to the day when we won’t need AIDS-related organizations, for instance, because the disease has been eradicated.

Community Foundations on the other hand, were created specifically to exist in perpetuity.  Donors want to see the organization as being solid, well-established and successful. The building will convey that message through its design.

Why not just rent space?

We explored this option.  There were several reasons we rejected it.

First, in our current space we've learned that renters don’t control their fate.  The character of our current building has changed dramatically over the past nine years.  While there has very recently been improvement, the building had been allowed to deteriorate badly.  We received frequent complaints from volunteers and donors about the condition of the building.  At times we do not have access to the building (in the summer, for instance, the air conditioning is turned off in the building on weekends making it unusable). 

Second, constructing a building provides us with access to capital that we might not otherwise have.  In the public benefit sector, we often find private donors and other sources willing to fund building projects, but not other types of needs.  In other words, we believe that the project will create value for the community foundation, not divert resources.  It is important to note that we think about half of the funding that will ultimately come in for the building will be money that would only be available for a community foundation building and/or an environmentally friendly, or “green,” building.  Much (but not all) of this funding would not have been available to this community had it not been for this project.

Third, we believe that we can design a building the supports the mission of the Community Foundation, enhances downtown Reading and demonstrates the potential for green building design in the community.  

Finally, we asked Jerry Johnson, who is the former chief financial officer of VF Corporation and was once a finance professor at Harvard Business School, to explore this question. Read his findings.

Where will the building be located?

The building will be located at the corner of Third and Court streets in downtown Reading. The area is currently a surface parking lot. The Chiarelli parking garage, a fire station and the Bieber Bus terminal occupy the other three corners of the intersection.

What will be in the building?

The building will house the Community Foundation’s offices.  This section of the building will be designed to accommodate any future increase in the number of the Community Foundation staff members.  It will also include a small “start up” suite that would provide for incubating new community efforts (like the start up of Riverplace) or house temporary community initiatives (like the Initiative for a Competitive Greater Reading).  

The building will also include a Community Conference Center, which will be made up of a suite of meeting rooms and gathering spaces designed to support the Community Foundation’s work, but available for other community uses as well.

In all likelihood, the building will include an additional space, roughly equal in size to the Community Foundation’s offices that will be leased out.  This portion of the building will be financed with long-term financing and represents about a quarter of the cost of the building.   The space provides for future (as yet unanticipated) growth.

Tell me about the “Community Conference Center”?

The building will include conference space in several configurations.  All conference spaces will include wireless Internet access, telecommunications capability to allow for attendees to participate by phone (i.e. audio conferencing) and integrate presentation technology. 

Berks County Community Foundation has established itself as an impartial place where people come together to discuss important issues.  The Community Conference Center will provide a physical manifestation of that important part of our mission.  The center will be designed to support the work of tThe Community Foundation but will also be available to other community organizations at no more than a nominal charge. The space will include a catering kitchen so that food service provides minimal interruption during meetings.

The space will be designed to convey the message that the work of these meetings is important and will support the participants in those meetings.  Because the space will be viewed as a desirable space to hold a meeting (with convenient parking onsite and across the street), it will attract more people to downtown.  This will reinforce the corridor strategy articulated in the ICGR process.

Why a “Green Building”?

One of the Community Foundation’s challenges, because through our administration of the Metropolitan Energy Company Sustainable Energy Fund, is to increase the adoption of energy efficient and environmentally friendly building technology in our community.  The Reading area has been remarkably slow to adopt these technologies. We believe that by effectively designing our building, we can create a “green revolution” in Reading.

The building will feature green building technology that is economically defensible and readily understandable.   Throughout the building, displays will explain the green components and a curriculum will be developed for school groups.

The design process has been developed to maximize the involvement of local organizations so that we leave behind capacity within the local design community that, we hope, will lead to green building technology being more frequently integrated into local building design.   The design team is headed by ReVision Architecture from Philadelphia and Designworks from Reading.  The construction manager on the project is Butz/Burkey a joint venture between Alvin H. Butz Construction of Allentown and Burkey Construction of Reading.

In addition, the building will include a “learning component” so that  visitors will learn about green building technology during their visit there.  We hope this will lead to replication of that technology throughout the region.

What is the cost of the building and how will it be paid for?

At the moment, we believe that the total cost of constructing and equipping the building will be about $4.1 million.   That cost is very, very tentative and the ultimate cost should become clearer in the next month or so when the first cost estimates are complete.

We project borrowing about a quarter of that money to finance the rentable space and will use the rents to pay off that loan.   While we aren’t yet ready to discuss some of the sources (because of donor confidentiality issues or the fact that the sources aren’t finalized), over  ½ of the funding for the building will be either money the Community Foundation already has that is restricted for these purposes, or from some “Green Building” sources, including national relationships that the Community Foundation has built.   For example, we can say (though we have not yet publicly announced it) that the Kresge Foundation has given $65,000 to the project from their Green Building initiative.

We are also raising a portion of the money from the Community Foundation’s close friends and family. We’ve heard some concern that this fundraising might disrupt other fundraising efforts in the community.  Much of that concern seems to be based on misinformation.

We are not conducting a public capital campaign.  The amount of money we need to raise is too small (while not finalized, it will probably be well less than $1 million) to justify a broad-based community fundraising effort.   Secondly, the Community Foundation routinely raises several million dollars a year for a variety of purposes (Youth Advisory Committee, ICGR, The Reading Police K9 Corps, etc.).  Our planning does not suggest that this will be a particularly unusual year in fundraising.

Where can I learn more?

Keep an eye out for a new electronic version of our Giving Matters newsletter, which will premiere next week. Each issue will include a link to the latest information about the Community Foundation’s building project.

Where can I learn more?

Keep an eye out for a new electronic version of our Giving Matters newsletter, which will premiere next week. Each issue will include a link to the latest information about the Community Foundation’s building project.

Click on a link below to learn more:

A Permanent Place
A Good Location
One Building: Three Unique Spaces
A Living Building
Frequently Asked Questions
The Design Team
What Makes it "Green"?
What Can I Do At Home?