Construction on Philadelphia’s Carousel House rec center begins this summer

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Designs for a $44 million expansion of Carousel House, the city’s recreation center for people with disabilities, are finished and construction is expected to begin late this summer, officials say.

The project will add new gym and pool buildings to the 49-year-old center in Fairmount Park’s Centennial District, along with a larger playground, reconfigured parking and dropoff areas, and an extensive interior redesign, according to renderings presented at a community review meeting last month.

Philadelphia will build two basketball courts in a planned new gym building at the Carousel House recreation center. (City of Philadelphia)

The facility will more than double in size, and will have two full-length basketball courts, a lap pool and activity pool, locker rooms, a multi-purpose atrium, a kitchen, a classroom, and lab rooms for fitness, art, and computers.

The project is part of the city’s soda tax-funded Rebuild program and is being overseen by a Capital Program Office that Mayor Cherelle Parker created two years ago.

This summer, construction drawings will be completed and the city will take bids from builders. A groundbreaking ceremony is planned for late summer and construction is expected to finish in summer 2028, according to the city’s presentation.

From demolition to expansion

Carousel House closed in 2020, during the pandemic, and remained shuttered because extensive repair needs had left the building unsafe to use.

The Department of Parks and Recreation initially planned to demolish the building and replace it with a general-purpose rec center. But following protests by the all-volunteer Carousel House Advisory Council and other supporters, the city announced it would expand the facility instead.

Designers held a series of public events in 2022 and 2023 to get community input and present design ideas, and officials said it would reopen by 2025.

A rendering shows the planned redesign of outdoor spaces around the Carousel House recreation center in Philadelphia. (City of Philadelphia)

But after Parker took office she put the project under the new Capital Program Office and it seemed to go into limbo, advisory council members said.

A Rebuild spokesperson later said the project had been delayed in part to allow planners to analyze underground utilities, do required archeological research and prepare a stormwater manager plan.

The estimated construction cost also soared from $12 million to $40 million, requiring officials to look for additional sources of funding.

A call to speed up construction

Last September, advisory council president Tamar Riley and other supporters spoke at a City Council meeting and urged members to push Rebuild to accelerate the project.

The group’s treasurer Mike Martin said some programs for disabled users were “dying a slow death” after being relocated to another rec center that is shared with able-bodied residents.