Mayor Jim Kenney offers a first glimpse at the $21 million reconstruction of Vare Rec Center in South Philly
The recreation center is among the city facilities that will be revamped as part of the Rebuild program, funded in part by Kenney’s signature tax on sweetened beverages.
Where the demolished Vare Recreation Center once stood in South Philadelphia, pieces of a new and improved center foreshadow the site’s future: The beams of a swing set stand surrounded by gravel and cones, and a scoreboard is already lit up in the basketball gym that still has a concrete floor.
“It’s more than a rec center, it’s a community center,” Mayor Jim Kenney said at a hard-hat tour of the site Monday. The $21 million Vare reconstruction began in June 2022 and is estimated to be complete in spring 2024.
When complete, the site — which was previously a beloved but crowded and dilapidated building — will feature an 18,700-square-foot recreation center with an outdoor playground and sprayground; an indoor basketball gymnasium; a gymnastics gym with new equipment; a multipurpose room; two outdoor basketball courts; and turf fields.
The recreation center is among the city facilities that are being revamped as part of the Rebuild program, funded in part by Kenney’s signature tax on sweetened beverages. The ambitious plan to revitalize public spaces to help kids and families has been beset by delays, and as Kenney prepares to leave office, the Vare renovation is one of dozens of projects on the city’s initial list of 72 sites that are either still under construction, in the design phase, or have had relatively small fixes and emergency repairs completed.
Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker, who takes office in January and also attended Monday’s tour, complimented the bright light fixtures and natural light in the new basketball gym, which already has orange and teal stripes painted on its gray walls.
Kenney emphasized that project designers incorporated feedback from parents and children who use the space. And according to Yasmeen Abbott, president of Vare Advisory Council, the lighting Parker complimented was a key part of the design.
“These aren’t dungeons; these are safe havens and places for our kids and community members to come to, so it should feel that way,” Abbott said.
While the Vare pool will not be renovated as part of the project, it will remain on site — which Abbott said the community pushed for so neighborhood children could still learn to swim.
Supporting the city’s recreation centers also helps minimize violence in the city by offering a safe haven for kids, said Abbott, who has celebrated her children’s baby showers, mourned family members, and brought her daughter to gymnastics at Vare.
Children and adults in the South Philly neighborhood had long flocked to Vare’s pool and former playground, basketball courts, sports fields, basketball gym, gymnastics space, computer center, teen center, arcade, and fitness room at the corner of 26th and Morris Streets. But the facility was run-down, and Vare had to close in 2017 after structural engineers deemed the 100-year-old building unsafe.
The center had partially reopened before work began on a new building, with six support beams serving as supports to hold it up. Still, the second floor was closed, and the lobby floor sagged. But despite the building’s condition, life still bustled inside. The center provided a sense of belonging to many residents, and the gymnastics and football teams are a point of pride in the community.
The athletes at Vare have been committed and passionate, even under less-than-ideal circumstances. Gymnasts practiced without heat in the winter, and without air-conditioning in the summer, Abbott said. Basketball players ran on bad floors, and football players didn’t have a regulation-sized field, she said. All the while, they won championships against teams with more resources.
The Make the World Better Foundation, an organization founded by former Philly Eagles outside linebacker Connor Barwin and his mom, was tasked with addressing the building’s structural instability and renovating and modernizing it.
Along with the sweetened-beverage tax money, the $21 million project — one of the largest in the Rebuild program — is funded by a $500,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, more than $400,000 from the Make the World Better Foundation, a $250,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, and $250,000 from the Eagles through the NFL Foundation, according to Rebuild spokesperson Lloyd Salasin-Deane.