New Collingswood agreement opens playgrounds after school, grants $10.5 million to revamp athletic fields

A new agreement between the Collingswood Board of Education and Collingswood Borough approved this week will open the door for a $10.5 million renovation of the school district’s athletic complex.

The three-person Collingswood Board of Commissioners voted in favor of the shared service agreement on June 17, and the 11-member Board of Education followed suit unanimously at its Monday meeting.

The agreement aims to update the school district’s recreation spaces and give the borough more access to school properties formerly closed to nonstudents, including auditoriums, classrooms, and athletic fields.

The public can now visit the district’s playgrounds and track facilities from 7 a.m. until dusk on days when students aren’t at school, including the summer months, weekends, and holidays. When school is back in session, those facilities will open when after-school activities end and close at dusk.

The changes come just as the school district moves into its summer season, and months after the district announced that one of its elementary schools will not reopen next school year due to budget cuts.

The $10.5 million renovation project for the athletic fields at Collingswood Middle and High School is financed by $15 million in bonded funds the borough authorized last spring for the redevelopment of fields and facilities in Collingswood.

The new shared service agreement just lays out the formal framework for that collaboration and ensures the borough gets perks in return, like use of school property for July 4 celebrations and access to the new facilities.

Amy Henderson Riley, one of Collingswood’s commissioners, said the agreement gives the spending a dual purpose.

“When you work together, things can be kind of amazing. Everybody is being squeezed,” Henderson Riley said. “The word of the year is affordability.”

The project proposal, presented in October at a community forum on Collingswood’s recent 310-page recreation master plan, has a long list of goals. The district wants to convert the current grass football field into a multisport artificial turf field and build a new eight-lane track, along with adding a grass softball field, a concessions building, new bathrooms, a 1,500-seat grandstand, a student press box, and more improvements.

» READ MORE: Collingswood's James Garfield Elementary School set to close due to budget cuts

The firms involved so far include Remington & Vernick Engineers and Garrison Architects, Superintendent Fredrick McDowell said. A construction company won’t come on board until Collingswood and its Board of Education publicize a bid package for construction work and review those bids at least 30 days later.

McDowell said Wednesday the goal is to start the project as soon as possible, though there’s no timeline yet for when the project could begin or wrap up. Students will continue to use existing facilities in the meantime.

The remaining $4.5 million in bonded funds from the borough will likely be split between improvements to Knight Park, a 70-acre green space in the middle of Collingswood, and the potential acquisition of a new upper grade school.

The recreation presentation from October reported that $2.5 million of the $15 million bonded funds will go toward Knight Park upgrades.

Henderson Riley said her fellow commissioner Jim Maley is overseeing the steering committee for the Knight Park project. Maley did not return requests for comment.

The other $2 million could go to the acquisition of the former Good Shepherd Catholic School on Lees Avenue. The Collingswood School District has sought for years to convert Good Shepherd into an upper grade school building for fourth and fifth graders.

Henderson Riley said there is currently no information to share on the status of acquiring Good Shepherd.

The only way the school district could have afforded the athletic field renovations and these projects without collaboration with the borough is through a bond referendum, McDowell said, a vote at the ballot box to determine whether a school can borrow funds through the sale of bonds.

In 2024, about 70% of Collingswood voters voted against a bond referendum that would have funded the athletic field redesign.

It would have also closed two elementary schools and allowed the district to acquire the former Good Shepherd Catholic School on Lees Avenue and convert it into an upper grade school building. The referendum would’ve raised Collingswood residents’ property taxes, since that’s how bonds are paid back.

One of those elementary schools, James Garfield Elementary, still closed due to budget cuts this week.