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The Revivalists

How an innovative arts center breathed new life into the city of Reading.

By John Davidson

In late 2003 Diane LaBelle and some community leaders eyed a cluster of abandoned industrial buildings in the distressed downtown of Reading and had a vision. What if, they thought, we made something of that building that would serve as a spark to revitalize the area? After two years of hard work, state funding and private donations, the renovated buildings opened as GoggleWorks, an arts center home to 40 working artist studios.

Since then, GoggleWorks has expanded and flourished, adding summer camps and educational programs, office space for 25 arts and cultural organizations, galleries, classrooms, and open houses with live music.

And sure enough, the success of GoggleWorks in downtown Reading has served as a catalyst for revitalization within its community. Reading Area Community College opened a new technology center two blocks away while a performing arts center is going in down the street. A 10-screen Imax theater is currently under construction downtown, with luxury apartments and an amphitheater in the works.

Diane LaBelle, now executive director of Goggleworks, spills on the very successful project.

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What made you think GoggleWorks would be a success?
I had been the director of The Banana Factory in South Bethlehem for five years and I had also worked as an architect in Pittsburgh, and I had seen the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. I saw that there is an absolute connection between what happens when artists move into an area and what happens to the city. Artists always take the risks and move into areas that nobody else wants, and Reading had seen some really difficult times over the past 15 years. The building was situated in a perfect location to help revitalize the city, because it’s one block away from Penn Street, it’s two blocks from the river, Reading Area Community College is right across the street.

When it comes to revitalizing an area, is the location of a given building, and what’s adjacent to it, just as important as the planned use for that building?
Yes, the building for a community art center needs to be a place where you can get foot traffic. Even though initially you may not have that pedestrian traffic, it needs to be an option so that as the city starts to come back, people can get to that location and they can get there on foot. When you have visitors to your city, they’re going to stay in a certain place and they’re going to want to walk to various places. So the proximity of the GoggleWorks, one block from the main street and two or three blocks from the Abraham Lincoln Hotel, is important for foot traffic; it helps to revitalize a city.

What are some of the different elements that make a project like this successful?
The most important thing is to get the buy-in of the community before you build the project. I spent almost a year talking to as many arts organizations and artists as I could to find out what the city already had and what the city needed, so that we weren’t doing anything that was going to be in direct competition. And by doing that, people feel like they had a part in the design—and they did. They feel like it belongs to them and their community, and then they help support it. And I think that’s critical to any project like this. You don’t just build something and plop it down somewhere; you really get the input of the people who are going to be impacted by it, benefited by it, and the people who want to be a part of it.

What lessons can other cities and communities similar to Reading take from your experience with GoggleWorks?
It was the city, the arts community and the business community all working together. There was a real partnership there. Everybody wanted to see something that was good for Reading. The mayor was very involved, city council, Marlin Miller and Albert Boscov and Irv Cohen—they really believe in Reading and the revitalization of Reading. So everybody worked together to figure out what this was going to be.

What was the greatest challenge you faced starting out?
The ongoing challenge is the operating budget. Everybody’s excited when you’re building the building, and we had a very supportive community in terms of the capital campaign—it was Berks County’s largest capital campaign. And now the challenge, as always, is the operating budget and making sure we get this operation to a break-even point.

What is your plan for long-term success, both in terms of the operating budget and in the community at large?
About a third of the budget comes from tenants’ rent. We have 25 arts and cultural organizations and 40 artists, and they all lease their spaces. Another piece of the operating plan is the program piece. For instance, this past summer we had 450 kids in summer camp, and the camps run for a week. We also do education programs for everybody year-round, so the program component is very big. And that also includes things like team building for corporations; teams of executives can come and do glass blowing as a team-building event. We also have a program where we rent out space for everything from weddings to artists who want to use the studios. And then we do what every nonprofit in the world does, and that is fundraisers and membership drives and grant writing.

(Note: Interview was edited and condensed for space.)