Reps seek support for new rec/senior center.
State Reps. Warren Kampf, R-157, and Becky Corbin, R-155, have requested that House leadership support two projects that would benefit Phoenixville with funding through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP).
This is a bipartisan effort also supported by state Sen. Andrew Dinniman, D-19.
The lawmakers have urged House Speaker Mike Turzai, Majority Leader Dave Reed and Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor to obtain funding for the Phoenixville Fire Station and Recreation Center and the Phoenixville Multi-Modal Transit Center.
“Over the last 20 years, the Borough of Phoenixville has undergone very significant changes and growth,” Kampf wrote. “Population has increased, the downtown bustles with retail, restaurants and new multi-family developments and what was once a struggling former manufacturing town has transformed itself.”
Such growth has created congestion and an increased demand for public safety services. At the same time, the needs of the area’s older population have increased.
“As Phoenixville has transformed into a thriving suburban town that serves residents from throughout the region, the need for capital improvements has increased,” Corbin said. “The Phoenixville Fire Department is in serious need of a new building given that its current home is more than 100 years old. A multimodal center with additional parking would alleviate some of the congestion and parking problems residents, merchants, and commuters face.”
The two RACP applications are part of a larger plan to provide a recreation center that could house the existing senior center, a new building for the Phoenixville Fire Department and the Phoenix ville MultiModal Transit Center.
Kampf and Corbin are seeking a grant of $8.3 million for the recreation and senior center and firehouse and $4.3 million for an inter-modal transit center that would add room for parking spaces.
RACP is a Commonwealth grant program administered by the Office of the Budget for the acquisition and construction of regional economic, cultural, civic, recreational and historical improvement projects that cannot obtain primary funding under other state programs.
Projects funded by RACP must have a regional or multi-jurisdictional impact and generate substantial increases or maintain current levels of employment, tax revenues or other measures of economic activity.