Art Lives At GoggleWorks; Artists To Live At GoggleWorks II

A 1947 topographic map of the Reading, Pennsylvania area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Entertainment Square at Second and Washington streets is about to get another boost, this one aimed at combination apartment/studios for professional artists.

Retailer Albert R. Boscov this week said his nonprofit Our City Reading is ready to start on a $4.5 million renovation of a still-unused portion of the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts on the square’s northeast corner.

That five-story building, also called GoggleWorks II, is connected to the main building by overhead walkways.

It will get 20 to 25 so-called live-work spaces, ranging in size from 1,200 to 2,800 square feet, with roughly a third of each to be living space in the interiors, and two-thirds to be studio space next to the big windows of what had been a safety equipment factory.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=433907

Bethlehem Zoners Reject South Side Artist Colony

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Northampton County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A nonprofit developer said this week’s zoning denial would not stop its multi-million-dollar plan to bring low-rent housing and a convert a vacant church into an art gallery in south Bethlehem.

Housing Development Corp. Midatlantic of Lancaster will go back to the drawing board to determine how to address the parking issues associated with the $11 million project, President Michael Carper said.

“We closed on the properties. We own them. We’re not going away and will make it work,” he said.

Plans included converting the vacant St. Stanislaus Church on Hayes Street into an art gallery accompanied with building 28 new, low-rent townhouses, loft apartments and 26 parking spaces on the property.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-bethlehem-zoners-art-gallery-20120927,0,2601905.story