City examining Robin Hood Dell East damage
The city should know in three weeks whether the summer-concert series at the Robin Hood Dell East can go forward or if it needs to be moved elsewhere.
The city should know in three weeks whether the summer-concert series at the Robin Hood Dell East can go forward or if it needs to be moved elsewhere.
Aides to Mayor Nutter, briefing City Council members yesterday, said an engineering firm is examining the ground under the Fairmount Park venue's seats and stage to determine if drainage trouble has destabilized the foundation and made it unsafe.
If that's the case, the concert series will be moved to an alternative location while a $2.5 million renovation is completed.
But if the venue is still safe, the concerts will be held at the Dell and the work will be put off until after the summer.
That sounds a lot better to Council than the original plan, presented by Nutter staffers in budget hearings last week, to shutter the Dell and cancel the concerts for the 2008 season.
Clay Armbrister, Nutter's chief of staff, stopped just short of saying the plan to cancel the concert series was out of the question.
"We're hopeful that we will be able to provide at least some entertainment for the patrons during the course of this summer," Armbrister said.
The Dell's drainage problems were detailed in a 1999 report for the city. The city's Recreation Department, which oversees the venue, has used a patchwork of concrete pours since then to shore up the foundations for sections of seating and the stage.
"Over the years, you can't address it by just pouring more and more concrete," Armbrister told Council members.
Instead, that concrete must be torn out to improve the drainage and prevent more erosion.
Concerned Council members don't dispute the need for long-overdue renovation. But they were worried that the venue would sit unused during the bidding for the renovation contract and the design work needed for the job. Several wondered what their constituents would think about an empty venue.
"Nobody here is fussing that the Dell needs to be repaired," Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller told Nutter's staff. *
