Santander Arena (Sovereign Center) | Reading

Sovereign Center, renamed Santander Arena in 2013, is a multipurpose indoor venue anchoring downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. Housed in the former Reading Railroad freight station footprint at 700 Penn Street, the arena opened on September 6, 2001, and has since served as Berks County’s principal stage for professional sports, large-scale concerts, and civic gatherings.

Architecture and Facilities

The building preserves the 1900s brick freight-house façade, wrapping it in modern steel and glass. Inside, retractable seating and telescoping lower bowls allow rapid conversion from a 7,160-seat hockey rink to a 9,000-seat concert bowl or a flat-floor exhibition hall. A horseshoe-shaped concourse rings the upper level, where eighteen luxury suites, two party decks, and the PPL Electric VIP Lounge overlook the ice. Back-of-house amenities include six locker rooms, laundry and equipment bays, a full service kitchen, and a 70-foot-wide loading dock that accommodates four semi-trailers nose-in for arena-sized tours.

Tenants and Sports

The arena’s anchor tenant is the Reading Royals, ECHL affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers. Since their inaugural 2001–02 season the Royals have won three division titles and captured the Kelly Cup in 2013. The ice sheet also hosts Penn State Berks club hockey, high-school championships, figure-skating clinics, and public skates. For basketball, the floor accommodates 5,500 spectators and has welcomed NBA G League games and the Harlem Globetrotters. The venue has staged professional indoor football (Reading Express, 2006–2012) and mixed-martial-arts cards televised on regional sports networks.

Concerts and Entertainment

Santander Arena draws A-list tours that bypass smaller civic centers yet fit more comfortably here than in Philadelphia’s arenas fifty miles southeast. Notable performances include Elton John (2005), Bruce Springsteen (solo, 2014), Carrie Underwood (2019), and Tyler, the Creator (2022). The acoustics benefit from a floating roof truss and acoustic baffles added in a 2018 upgrade that also installed a 32-foot-wide Daktronics center-hung video cube and LED ribbon boards. Family programming ranges from Disney On Ice to Monster Jam, while annual events such as the Berks Jazz Fest, Reading Holiday Parade indoor kickoff, and Berks Catholic graduation cement the arena’s community role.

Economic and Community Impact

Operated by ASM Global under a lease with the Berks County Convention Center Authority, the arena generates an estimated thirty-five million dollars in regional economic activity each year. More than four hundred part-time event staff complement a full-time crew of forty, and nearby restaurants routinely report double-digit sales spikes on show nights. The attached Santander Performing Arts Center (the former Rajah Theatre, two blocks away) forms a two-venue campus that markets joint ticket packages and conference rentals.

Accessibility and Services

The main entrance opens onto Penn Street under a steel-and-glass canopy illuminated in team colors on game nights. Patrons find two escalator banks, elevators to all levels, and seating platforms that exceed ADA requirements. Free Wi-Fi blankets the concourse, while a 5G antenna array supports mobile ticketing and cash-free concessions. Parking is available in the adjacent South Penn and Poplar-Walnut garages; the BARTA bus station sits one block east for car-free access.

Recent Upgrades

A 2023 sustainability retrofit replaced halogen house lights with LEDs, installed low-flow plumbing, and outfitted the mechanical plant with heat-recovery chillers projected to cut annual energy use by twenty percent. The Royals’ training area now includes a synthetic-ice shooting lane and a video theater with seventy-inch telestration screens, meeting new ECHL Player Safety standards.

Significance

From championship hockey and sellout concerts to blood drives, job fairs, and high-school commencements, the Sovereign Center—now Santander Arena—operates as Reading’s living room, a flexible civic asset that channels the city’s industrial heritage into twenty-first-century entertainment and economic vitality.