The Berks County Redevelopment Authority is moving forward with the Second Street Redevelopment and Grand Avenue Extension Project in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. The Second Street Redevelopment Area includes commercial and industrial buildings as well as a number of residential buildings and structures. The Redevelopment Area is bordered by State Route 61 and Schuylkill River to the west, Island Street to the north, Peach Alley to the east, and along the property of the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society to the south. The project would extend Grand Street to Route 61 to allow for commercial development, establish a pedestrian promenade between State Street and Grand Street, create two public parking areas, one near the promenade and another between State Street and Schuylkill Avenue, among many other improvements. 
The plans to redevelop this area began back in 2005 when the Hamburg Planning Commission and the Berks County Redevelopment Authority established the project area for redevelopment in accordance with the Urban Redevelopment Law of 1945. This law allows a planning commission to certify an area as blighted and to be in need of redevelopment. The law also gives the redevelopment authority the power to proceed with acquisitions utilizing eminent domain.
The planning commission found the Second Street area to indeed be blighted:
…the area suffers from a range of serious problems. These problems have developed over time due to inadequate planning of street and lot layout, building design and arrangement. Poor planning, changing community needs, economic factors and ordinary neighborhood evolution have contributed to the current problem of economically and socially undesirable land uses. In addition these factors have led to unsafe, unsanitary, inadequate conditions in the Borough of Hamburg.
Presently, the Berks County Redevelopment Authority has started to move to acquire some of the properties and offer appraisals for others affected by this project. To learn more about the eminent domain process in Pennsylvania, visit our Pennsylvania eminent domain page.
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