Berks County commissioners July 9: a 600 Penn Street step
The July 9, 2026 Berks County agenda: outside lawyers to negotiate a possible purchase of 600 Penn Street, $600,000 in budget moves, and how to comment.
By The Berks Beat staff · Published July 7, 2026 · Updated July 7, 2026
The Berks County Board of Commissioners meets Thursday, July 9, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. at the Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street, Reading, with a Microsoft Teams option for watching and commenting from home.
The headline: lawyers for the 600 Penn Street deal
The board will vote on authorizing County Solicitor Christine M. Sadler to sign an engagement letter with the law firm Masano Bradley to represent the county in negotiating “the potential purchase of 600 Penn Street, Reading.”
600 Penn Street is the former Wells Fargo office tower at Sixth and Penn, a roughly 125,000-square-foot Class A building with an attached parking garage, built in 1997 on the site of the old Pomeroy’s department store. The county announced the plan on May 5: make the building a centralized county government center for about 300 employees, convert the Services Center into a judicial center, and defer a courthouse renovation that engineers now price near $165 million. Officials put the purchase-and-renovation cost around $95 million. Our report explains the numbers.
Thursday’s vote hires negotiators; it does not buy the building, and no purchase price for the tower itself has been made public. (Update, July 7: this preview originally omitted the county’s May cost figures; this section now includes them.) Hiring outside counsel to negotiate is how big deals start, though, so residents with opinions about the county buying downtown real estate should speak now rather than after a sale agreement is signed. We think the county should publish its business case first.
About $600,000 in budget moves
The board will vote to shift $451,573 between existing budget lines (“budget transfers”) and to add $148,046 in new spending authority (“appropriations”). This is routine mid-year housekeeping. Departments over- and under-shoot their lines all year, and the dollar figures are how you spot priorities changing. The detailed listing is dated July 2 and available from the budget office.
The rest of the agenda
- Planning Commission reappointment. Gavin Milligan of Blandon would get another 4-year term on the Berks County Planning Commission, through December 30, 2030.
- Workforce grant paperwork. A certification form for a state Business Education Partnership grant application by the Berks County Workforce Development Board, which funds programs connecting local students with employers.
- HealthChoices certification. A compliance form for the county’s HealthChoices program, the managed-care arrangement for Medicaid behavioral health and one of the biggest money flows in county government.
- Violence prevention grant change. A project modification request for the county’s Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency violence intervention and prevention grant.
- Routine consent items. Weekly contract listings, payments, and payroll authorizations. The board will also pre-authorize payments and budget transfers for the week ending July 17 subject to staff review, the usual sign that it does not expect to meet the following week.
How to attend or comment
- In person: Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street, Reading. Doors open well before 10 a.m.
- Online: a Teams link is posted with the agenda on the county meetings page.
- Comment rules: give your first name, last name, and municipality; one comment per person; online comments go through the Teams Q&A and are read aloud; the entire comment period is capped at 30 minutes, with in-person speakers first.
First time? Read how to speak at a commissioners meeting. A recap will follow the meeting; last week’s is here.