U.D. receives $1M grant for new community center
Imagine for a moment a vibrant, clean, welllit community building with rooftop views of the city designed to stimulate growth for surrounding businesses. On Thursday, Upper Darby Mayor Barbarann Keffer announced a $1 million grant from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program for just such a place, a planned Upper Darby Community Center.
The grant will enable the project to move from the study phase to site preparation and will replace the current multipurpose welcome center located at 7000 Walnut St.
“Now more than ever, our kids need a safe place to play and learn after school,” said Keffer. “This center represents a critical, and long overdue, step for our community. It will send the signal that Upper Darby is on the move as a forward-looking destination community for families and businesses alike.”
Officials envision a facility that includes afterschool tutoring, computer access, adult education, recreational opportunities, as well as an urban farming component.
In awarding the application, the RACP noted that the concept was consistent with the Township’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan to spur the growth of business in the 69th Street corridor.
Vince Rongione, township chief administrative officer, said money for the community center has been included in the township’s five-year $30 million capital improvement budget plan. Council has approved
the first $10 million of that budget.
Rongione said officials will also pursue additional public and private grant money for the project, which he estimated will cost $5 million. They have been working on the concept since last February.
“When budgeted to build the building, we didn’t know if we would get the grant,” said Rongione. “The grant makes it easier, but one way or another the mayor was committed to finding a way of constructing the facility.”
One idea that has excited
Rongione is the concept of a community garden as a green roof on the center.
“So now we can teach not only kids but people of all ages in that neighborhood, how to cultivate, how to grow their own food,” Rongione said. “You get multiple impacts there.”
The grant is for the site preparation including demolition, stormwater management, engineering plans and site remediation. The architecture firm Buell Kratzer Powell has created a preliminary exterior rendering of the planned facility.
“We are incredibly thankful to all of the elected officials and community groups who believe, as I do, that Upper Darby deserves a stateof-the-art recreation and learning facility,” said Keffer.
“I think it’s part of a larger attempt to really improve and make the 69th Street area a much more vibrant, welcoming place,” said state Rep. Mike Zabel, D-163, whose district includes parts of the township. “The grant is for the initial site preparation and construction - a lot of the hard costs in the beginning to get it going.”
Zabel said the grant would give the township the chance to focus on what the community center can do and not just the cost of getting started.
“These funds are going to an incredibly important project that will reach so many people throughout
Delaware County,” said state Sen. Tim Kearney,
D-26 of Swarthmore. “This project will create a new community center in the largest municipality in our county, providing exciting opportunities for local residents. I’m proud to have advocated for this project, and I’m excited to see it take a big step forward, thanks to this investment from the commonwealth.”
Rongione said the neighborhood associations in the area are supportive of the center. There will be public meetings later in January or early February to solicit input on the plan. The Mayor’s Recreation Advisory Council has been involved in the planning and will assist in the planning.
“Things that come from the top down don’t always work very well. If you really want to build a community center, a good thing to do is engage the community about what they’re looking for,” Rongione said.
The RACP grant comes from the Office of the Budget for the acquisition and construction of regional economic, cultural, civic, recreational, and historical improvement projects that generate substantial increases or maintain current levels of employment, tax revenues, or other measures of economic activity.
Other 2020 RACP grants approved in Delaware County include: $1.5 million for 911 upgrades; $1 million to Seaport Commissary and Event Center in Chester to develop a 2.06 acre property located in an Opportunity Zone into a flex-space;
$2.5 million for redevelopment of the former Chester Community Hospital;
$500,000 to help renovate
13,500 SF of existing space on Springfield Hospital’s main floor to become the new home of the Center for Family Health; $1 million for the Villanova University Performing Arts Center; $900,000 to the Philadelphia Suburban Association of Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors in Aston for an Apprentice School Renovation Project; $1.5 million for Monroe Energy in Trainer, part of a multi-phased investment to convert oncethrough cooling water from the Delaware River to a closed-loop, city water cooling tower system;
$1 million to the Haverford Free Library for facilities upgrade; $500,000 to Delaware County Community College for facility purchase and renovation/expansion at the former Prendergast High School; $500,000 to Delaware County Memorial Hospital Adult Behavioral Health to convert the existing, vacant 23-bed Rehabilitation Unit in Delaware County Memorial Hospital into a 9,600 SF, 22 bed Adult Behavioral Health Unit; $2 million for runway and airport improvements at Philadelphia International Airport; $500,000 to Eddystone Borough for fire station improvements, various community improvements and a new
4600 square-foot maintenance facility; $1 million to Franklin Mint Capital II for construction of padcomplete site at 1278 Baltimore, part of a hotel and retail project; and $1.5 million to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Pomegranate RE LLC to develop a 175,000 square-foot twostory modern and secure facility in Millbourne to efficiently move supplies to their many facilities.