Shuman Development Group

Lets provide a little background here regarding the Reading Parking Authority (RPA). It was created with the good intention of building cost effective and convenient parking for all the big businesses moving into the downtown in the 1970s and 1980s including CNA insurance, Aetna Insurance, Exide Battery, Meridian Bank, Corestates Bank, Citizens Bank, American Bank, etc... thousands and thousands of employees that all needed parking and big companies that did not want to be involved in building parking garages. Since then, for various local, national, and global issues, thousands of those jobs are no longer in the area.
Then about 2010 the city entered ACT 47 (a form of municipal pre-bankruptcy) and worked out a deal for the RPA to pay the city millions to balance the budget, plus there were decades of deferred maintenance on the parking garages, together the RPA ended up in its current situation.
Now, in 2026, the RPA is stuck with lots of big garages in the downtown that are mostly vacant (See photos), lacking the funds to clean and maintain them as they should be (see photos), and still saddled with over $30 million of bonds still payable (of which the city has guaranteed).
Remember, these garages are all publicly owned, so they pay no real estate taxes. They just sit mostly empty tying up lots of downtown land and needing more ticketing revenue for maintenance.

To make up for this revenue shortage, the RPA has to either charge high rates for downtown event parking or high rates for parking tickets, or both, and try to stop any competition. But higher rates are exactly the opposite of the RPA's mission of convenient and cost-effective parking.

Monday night at 5pm there is a public hearing at City Hall that will address RPA zoning issues which is a start to fixing this issue.

Your thoughts on a solution?

Reading has been lagging behind its neighboring cities for decades when it comes to revitalization. Two of the main reasons are lack of effective codes enforcement and parking issues. We finally have a competent Community Development director at the city and seem to be making progress on that item. Monday night at 5pm City Council will hold a public hearing on the parking issue. I will be there and I hope some of you can make it as it takes hearing from the public to make real changes.

The issue with the Reading Parking Authority (RPA) is not that they have bad people, but that over the past 50-60 years, lots of bad ordinances have been passed by the city forcing the RPA into its current position. The RPA should have one mission, to provide convenient and cost-effective parking solutions to the public. There is no reason why ordinances are in place that make the RPA a monopoly on parking, that make the RPA exempt from most zoning requirements, that make the RPA charge higher fines than any of our neighboring cities, etc...

For example, back in 2009 the city rolled out its 2020 Plan, what the city should look like in 2020. The plan specifically called out the RPA's exemption from zoning requirements for first floor retail in all of its downtown parking garages and how that destroyed the walkability and availability of quality retail on whole blocks. If zoning, as is stated in the cover pages of the ordinance, is to promote the quality of the urban environment, then why would there be exemptions for specific groups to those requirements?

If your mission is to provide convenient and cost-effective parking, a parking monopoly seems like the exact opposite approach. At my various parking lots around the city I provide free parking to the public to go to church on sundays, free parking to various city non-profits like the WCR for events, cheap or free parking for various events, convenient and cheaper parking to small businesses, etc... all in violation of the ordinance which the RPA is now trying to have the city enforce. I know of dozens of other smaller parking lot and garage owners who do the same to help out their neighborhoods, all in violation of the ordinances. We need to make it clear to city council monday night that its their job to change the ordinances and make Reading a parking friendly city that embraces anyone who wants to help people find convenient and cost-effective parking.

Downtown Reading welcomes Finanta's new downtown credit union branch on the 200 block of Penn Street. For those of you who don't know, this is the rebranded Community First Fund that has been helping businesses in Reading for many years.

For those of you who have never seen the interior of the buildings at 5th and Penn street, here are some photos. Some really fantastic buildings even if they do need substantial restoration work after sitting vacant for decades. It is interesting to note the bank branch originally had a giant glass skylight that we plan on re-installing. If anyone has any photos of that original skylight please post them.