Kelly Robertson, executive director of the Department of Community and Economic Development Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, visited the area known as Innovation Corridor.
An area of northeast Reading dubbed Innovation Corridor is the focus of revitalization efforts led by Habitat for Humanity of Berks County.
The moniker was coined by Adelle Schade to identify the swath of streets connecting Albright College’s Total Learning Center at 1041 Rockland St. to the Reading School District’s planned science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, academy at North Ninth and Douglass streets.
Schade, Albright’s dean of Pre-College and Summer Programming and founder of the center, and Timothy Daley, Habitat’s executive director, have high hopes for the connecting neighborhoods, which have been targeted by Habitat for rehabilitation.
“What we’re trying to do is take that space in between and improve the neighborhoods, reduce flight and increase homeownership,” Daley said. “Habitat’s role is to improve the neighborhoods and make more housing affordable for the parents of the children who will be going, hopefully, to both schools.”
Kelly Robertson, executive director of the Department of Community and Economic Development Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, and a team of community partners visited the center to learn more about Habitat’s vision for the corridor.
The group took a drive-by tour of the STEM academy site and general area before visiting the center to learn more about how its hands-on approach to interdisciplinary learning for all ages might complement the STEM academy’s planned curriculum and benefit residents of the corridor.
The center already works with the school district and its students, Schade noted, and leaders hope to expand that cooperation when the academy, now under construction, opens.
Ten of the center’s students received patents for their inventions and innovations, Schade said, and she expects that number to escalate after the planned opening of the academy in August 2025.
“Coming here and seeing the intense science opportunities and inventions and possibilities for the students is just so exciting,” she said. “As a former STEM teacher myself, I find this off the chart. I really think that you’re going to have a lot of inventions, a lot of patents. The fact that you already have patents coming out of here is just wonderful for Reading.”
Robertson and the entourage also drove by a formerly blighted house at 924 Douglass St.
Habitat teamed with the Reading-Muhlenberg Career and Technology Center to renovate the house as its first venture within the corridor.
The students are in the process of remodeling the kitchen and bathroom and installing energy-efficient replacement windows and a new boiler among other repairs and upgrades. And Habitat already has identified a potential buyer, a first-time homeowner, Daley said.
The group also learned about a mural to be painted on the Moss Street side of the house from Michael Miller, the learning center’s artist in residence and director of Albright’s mural arts program.
One of the ways Habitat hopes to create a safe and inviting environment is by using art to enhance public spaces and inviting the public to collaborate in creative projects.
Miller said art students from Reading schools will paint the mural on canvas panels that will be professionally installed on the building.
Lead artist Yenna Hill created the mural’s abstract design in Reading schools’ colors of red, black and white.
The self-taught artist, known for what she calls pop-infused ancestral hieroglyphics, is the niece of the world-renowned pop artist and Kutztown native Keith Haring.
Schade said the center plans to teach community members the technological skills needed to add augmented reality to the artwork so it appears to become animated. In this way, community members can add personal stories to the work as well as develop a marketable skill.
“I thought it was very impressive that students are the ones doing the rehabilitation of the building and prepping and painting the mural,” Robertson said.
She and community stakeholders also took part in a roundtable discussion of Habitat’s plan for the house and the larger neighborhood, known as Beyond the House.
To achieve its goals for the area, Habitat plans to work with investors, funders and other community partners to advance growth and investment in the area without displacing current residents.
To help with this and similar neighborhood revitalization projects, Habitat launched its Reinvest and Rebuild initiative, which engaged a diverse group of representatives from the public, private, nonprofit and education sectors to develop a comprehensive development plan in consultation with Penn Strategies.
The plan’s main objectives: ensuring clean and safe mixed-used neighborhoods, eliminating blighted housing and providing adequate affordable housing.
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