This afternoon, the Reading Fire Department and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire Arms and Explosives will address the city with
the latest on the Oct. 18 arson that destroyed the Reading Outlets Center.
The Keystone Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors
Inc. is hosting the press conference at 1 p.m. at the site of the fire at
Eighth and Oley streets in Reading. The fire ripped through the six-story
Reading Outlets building, causing $12 million in damage and putting back
completion of the project for another year.
At the press conference, the city’s fire marshal is
scheduled to give a brief investigative update, a Reading Fire Department
official said this morning, followed by the ATF reporting on the latest
increase of the reward that will be posted to find and prosecute the
arsonist(s).
“Almost a decade of my life is invested in this,” Alan
Shuman, owner of Shuman Development Group and the developer of the building,
said in a previous interview with Lehigh Valley Business. “It was going great;
there was a lot of interest in it and it was looking like a huge home run of a
project.”
The ATF initially posted a $10,000 reward, and Shuman
said he was throwing in $10,000 to double the reward.
The original plans for the 42,000 square feet of
commercial space in the building included a child care center, pharmacy medical
group, furniture rental store and farmers’ market.
The top four floors will still become 69 market-rate
apartments, and once completed, the entire project is anticipated to bring
nearly 60 construction jobs and 90 or more permanent jobs.
The building is the last of the 10 that Shuman’s group
bought in the outlet district since 2006, totaling about 640,000 square feet.
The group has already redeveloped, sold and leased more than two million square
feet of commercial property in downtown Reading in the last 10 years.
Source: LVB.com
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