Q&A: Diane LaBelle of GoggleWorks

In late 2003, Diane LaBelle and Reading's community leaders saw in a cluster of abandoned industrial buildings the potential for a first-class arts and cultural center that could help revitalize the city's distressed downtown. By the fall of 2005, through a combination of state funding and private donations, GoggleWorks opened its doors as a fully functioning arts center, home to 40 working artist studios.
 
Since then, GoggleWorks has flourished and expanded, adding summer camps and educational programs, office spaces for 25 arts and cultural organizations, galleries, classrooms, Second Sunday open houses that include live music and attract thousands of visitors, and a rapidly expanding membership.
 
The success of GoggleWorks has helped drive the ongoing revitalization of Reading's downtown; Reading Area Community College recently opened a new technology center two blocks away, a 10-screen IMAX theater opened downtown last year, and construction is set to begin this spring on luxury apartments next to the GoggleWorks facility at Second and Washington streets.

(Note: This interview was first published on newPA.com and has been edited and condensed.)
 
Keystone Edge: When you were approached about this project, what made you think, initially, that GoggleWorks could be a success?
 
Diane LaBelle: I had been the director of The Banana Factory in South Bethlehem for five years and I had also worked as an architect in Pittsburgh, and I had seen The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria probably 20 years before starting on this project, and I saw that there is an absolute connection between what happens when artists move into an area and what happens to the city. Artists always take the risks and move into areas that probably nobody else wants, and Reading had seen some really difficult times over the past 15 years. The building was situated in a perfect location, I thought, to help revitalize the city, because it’s one block away from Penn Street, it’s two blocks from the river, Reading Area Community College is right across the street, and it seemed like the location, in terms of the city and helping to bring back a part of the city, was really good for that… And I know that when artists are involved in a project, good things happen for the city.
 
KE: Would you say that when it comes to revitalizing an area, that the location of a given building, and what’s adjacent to it, are just as important as the planned use for that building?
 
DL: Yes, the building for a community art center needs to be a place where you can get foot traffic. Even though initially you may not have that pedestrian traffic, it needs to be an option so that as the city starts to come back, people can get to that location and they can get there on foot. When you have visitors coming into your city, one of the things visitors are going to do is they are going to stay in a certain place and they’re going to want to walk to various places. So the proximity of the GoggleWorks, one block from the main street and two or three blocks from the Abraham Lincoln Hotel, I think that that possibility of foot traffic is very important; it helps to revitalize a city and I think that the GoggleWorks is.
 
KE: What are some of the different elements that make a project like this successful?
 
DL: The most important thing is to get the buy-in of the community before you build the project. I spent almost a year talking to as many arts organizations and artists as I could to find out what the city already had and what the city needed, so that we weren’t doing anything that was going to be in direct competition. And by doing that, by getting people’s input about what the building should be, once the building is up and the community arts center opens, people feel like they had a part in the design—and they did have a part in it. Because of that, they feel like it belongs to them and their community, and then they help support it. And I think that’s critical to any project like this. You don’t just build something and plop it down somewhere; you really get the input of the people who are going to be impacted by it, benefited by it, and the people who want to be a part of it.
 
KE: What lessons can other cities and communities similar to Reading take from your experience with GoggleWorks?
 
DL: It was the city, the arts community and the business community all working together. There was a real partnership there. Everybody wanted to see something that was good for Reading. And again, I think the groundwork for that was laid ahead of time, it wasn’t just like, ‘we’re going to do this.’ The mayor was very involved, city council, Mr. [Marlin] Miller and Mr. [Albert] Boscov and Mr. [Irv] Cohen, they really believe in Reading and the revitalization of Reading. So everybody worked together to figure out what this was going to be, and I think the lesson is the community buy-in and collaboration.
 
KE: What was the greatest challenge you faced starting out?
 
DL: Well I think the ongoing challenge is the operating budget. Everybody’s excited when you’re building the building, and we had a very supportive community in terms of the capital campaign—it was Berks County’s largest capital campaign—so people really came out and supported us. And now the challenge, as always, is the operating budget and making sure we get this operation to a break-even point.
 
KE: What is your plan for long-term success, both in terms of the operating budget and in the community at large?
 
DL: The way the business plan was set up is that about a third of the budget comes from tenants’ rent. It was set up in such a way that you have that income from people who are leasing space in the building. We have 25 arts and cultural organizations and 40 artists, and they all lease their spaces. So that’s one piece of it. Another piece of the operating plan is the program piece. For instance, this summer we’ll have something like 450 kids in summer camp, and the camps run for a week. We also do education programs for everybody year-round, so the program component is very big. And that also includes things like team building for corporations; teams of executives can come and do glass blowing as a team-building event. We also have a program where we rent out space for everything from weddings to artists who want to come and use the studios. And then we do what every nonprofit in the world does, and that is fundraisers and membership drives and grant writing.

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Next week, Keystone Edge will feature a video of the GoggleWorks facility, to be shot during the Second Sunday event. In addition to multiple open galleries, Second Sundays feature kiln and glassblowing demonstrations, auctions, free tours, access to resident artists in their studios, and a musical performance. This month, Philadelphia indie band The Sweetheart Parade plays. Stay tuned.

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