Supporters of Carousel House, Philadelphia’s shuttered recreation center for people with disabilities, are calling on the city to accelerate a promised project to expand and reopen the facility.
The city’s Rebuild program has been promising for years to build a new center on the site in Fairmount Park’s Centennial District, but the start of construction has been delayed and supporters say they’ve had a hard time getting information about the project’s status.
In the meantime, the unique programs and features that Carousel House was celebrated for — including a wheelchair basketball team, an accessible swimming pool, and arts and social activities — are unavailable or withering due to the lack of an appropriate facility, supporters say.
“We are here today to ask the members of City Council to help us by urging Rebuild to begin fulfilling their commitments, and to start work on restoring the Carousel House immediately. It’s been too long,” Tamar Riley, president of the Carousel House Advisory Council, said at a council meeting Thursday. “We also are deeply concerned about the ongoing lack of communication.”
The group’s treasurer Mike Martin noted that after Carousel House closed in March 2020, some programs for disabled young people were transferred to Gustine Recreation Center, which is ADA accessible but lacks features like a pool and parking for paratransit vehicles.
“Promises from Rebuild have been unfulfilled,” Martin told councilmembers. “Our programs are dying a slow death as we share an already overcrowded Gustine Recreation Center with able-bodied residents of the East Falls neighborhood. The programs we are able to relocate to Gustine are operating at 50% capacity. We would ask you to please come to the aid of the disability community of the city.”
A complex site and soaring costs
The Department of Parks and Recreation said it locked the doors of the now 38-year-old center in 2020 because it had become unsafe and needed extensive repairs, including a new roof and HVAC system, and fixes for the steel structure and the pool.
Under then-mayor Jim Kenney, Rebuild hired designers and community engagement consultants, and held public meetings to solicit community input. They came up with a design for a much larger center with basketball courts, two pools, fitness, art and sensory rooms, and other features to accommodate disabled users and their families. Rebuild said it would reopen in 2025.
But after Mayor Cherelle Parker took office last year, she reorganized Rebuild to put it under the city’s Capital Projects department, and last summer the Carousel House project seemed to go into limbo, Riley and others said. They said their inquiries went unanswered and it was unclear if planning was still underway.
Rebuild officials have said the delay in planning and construction resulted in part from the complexity of the property, which was once the site of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition’s Main Exhibition building. Because the project is receiving federal funding, it had to undergo an environmental review, spokesperson Lloyd Salasin-Deane said.
“The project team conducted site and structural analysis, including underground utility analysis and archaeological field work. Because Carousel House is in a historic district, this work is complex and takes time,” he said. “Project estimates also increased, and additional funding needed to be identified to move the project forward.”
Parks & Rec also had to address a broken pipe at the facility earlier this year, but that work did not impact the project timeline, he said.
Councilmember Curtis Jones, whose district includes the site, noted the project’s rising cost.
“I want to say that promises were made under a different administration that called for, and we approved in this body, $12 million to rebuild the Carousel House. The delays, the inflation has moved that project up to close to $40 million,” he said at Thursday’s council meeting.
The project budget is $40 million for construction and $4 million for other costs, Salasin-Deane said. Once completed, it will be Rebuild’s largest project, he said.
Rebuild cuts more ribbons
Jones acknowledged that overcrowding at Gustine has sometimes led disabled people, who come from around the city to use its recreational spaces, to “bump heads” with neighborhood users occupying the building’s playing courts. He said he shared the Advisory Council’s concerns and vowed that the project will be completed.
“When I make a promise, I keep it,” he said. “We’re putting 10 toes down to rebuild Carousel House.”
Rebuild plans to bid out construction work next summer and finish the new rec center by summer 2028.
Salasin-Deane said Rebuild has been in touch with Carousel House supporters, reaching out to the Advisory Council in the spring and sending out an update to various stakeholders. It will hold a public meeting on Oct. 21 at the Please Touch Museum to show the progress of the building design, with an option for participants to join virtually, he said.
“Our team is committed to ongoing communication with the Advisory Council, stakeholders, and the community throughout the planning-and-design process,” he said. “Parks & Recreation meets with the Advisory Council on a regular basis, project information is available on the project website, and the Rebuild team was in communication with the Advisory Council and other stakeholders this month to confirm the upcoming stakeholder and community meeting.”
Rebuild is the city’s $600 million, soda tax-funded program to rehab playgrounds, rec centers and libraries, while offering contracted work and training programs for people of color.
In the past, it has been faulted for falling far behind its initial goal of completing 72 projects within six years of its launch in 2017. The ballooning cost of big projects like Carousel House also means the program’s initial $500 budget would cover fewer projects, or require an additional infusion of funds.
However, the pace of ribbon-cuttings appears to have increased recently. Salasin-Deane said it has finished 39 projects, most recently the repair of a collapsing roof that had shuttered Richmond Library for months, and the renovation of Piccoli Playground in Juniata Park.
Twelve other sites are currently under construction or being prepared for construction, according to Rebuild’s July progress report, and Salasin-Deane said some of those are expected to be finished in October.
The program’s anticipated budget has grown to $602 million, the report says. That includes $322 million in bonds issued by the city, $118 million in capital funding, $100 million in William Penn Foundation grants, and $62 million from the state and other funders.
Rebuild’s actual spending has reached $271 million so far, the report says.
The post Carousel House supporters ask for quick reopening of shuttered rec center appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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