Mayor Kenney’s plan to rebuild rec centers and libraries was a legacy-making project beset by delays

At the start of his tenure, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and his supporters sold the public on his signature Rebuild program, touting it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remake as many as 200 of the city’s recreation centers, parks, and libraries.

Now, as Kenney’s administration comes to a close, 17 projects are done. Of the city’s initial list of 72 sites slated for renovations, the remainder are still under construction, in the design phase, or have had relatively small fixes and emergency repairs completed. Plans to renovate spaces beyond the initial cohort never materialized.

Kenney’s novel Rebuild initiative will undoubtedly be one of the mayor’s most enduring legacies, reflecting his commitment to improving conditions for children and families in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods and providing job opportunities to diverse workers. Renovations have transformed once-dilapidated spaces, and more are on track for completion within the next year.

But Rebuild is far from meeting its original goals and has been beset by delays from the start, frustrating residents who have been waiting years for their neighborhood safe havens to be revitalized.

After Kenney’s tax on sweetened beverages passed in 2016 to help finance Rebuild, two years of litigation pushed back the projects’ timeline. Shortly after the city had initiated its lengthy contracting and design process, the pandemic hit. Construction was halted for months, supply chains were scrambled, and prices on materials skyrocketed.

Today, dozens of projects remain underway. And despite its original $500 million price tag, Rebuild has spent just $121 million to date.

“There’s been some degree of progress, but not nearly what the expectation or the vision was,” said the Rev. Gregory Holston, the gun violence chair of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, who said remaking the city’s recreation centers is a matter of public safety. “There’s a few that were at the top of the list that, almost seven years later, are still waiting for those repairs.”

Kira Strong, Rebuild’s executive director, said she’s proud the Kenney administration has invested in public spaces and showed “a commitment that hasn’t been made by anybody else before to this extent, magnitude, and depth.”

Strong said that it was never feasible for the city to undertake dozens of large-scale renovation projects simultaneously. She said she understands that the administration articulated a “transformational” vision that has yet to be realized for many residents.

“I don’t blame people at all for being frustrated,” Strong said.

Still, for those who have seen significant improvements to their public spaces, the wait was well worth it.

Take Robert T. Heitzman Recreation Center in Kensington, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods that has a disproportionately high rate of gun violence. In 2018, the paint was chipping off the playground and the fence was rusted.

Now, after a $4.3 million facelift, the recreation center has a colorful facade, brand new basketball courts, a renovated gymnasium, and inviting classroom spaces. The after-school programs that once attracted only a few children are often packed.

“With city projects of any nature, there’s always some anxiety and frustration around how long things take,” said City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, whose district includes Heitzman. “But the good news on Rebuild is, once it’s done, everyone is happy.”

Many Philadelphians will have to keep waiting into the next administration, and Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker has spoken favorably about Rebuild.

Nineteen sites are still under construction and 16 are in the community engagement phase. More than a dozen are still in the queue — they’re funded, but design and construction haven’t yet begun.

In some ways, this year — the last of Kenney’s tenure as mayor — was the first year that the Rebuild program had an open runway in front of it.

Revenue from his tax on sweetened beverages was supposed to help pay off $300 million in bonds that would fund the renovations. But after the tax became law, opponents of it sued, arguing it violated state law.

Kenney said in an interview last month that his administration didn’t issue bonds for Rebuild during the litigation because, if it were struck down, “we’d have to pay it all back out of our general fund money.”

Administration officials still tried to plug away, including unveiling a list in 2017 of more than 60 sites slated for revitalization. That initial list has since grown to 72 sites that the administration says were selected based on need.

The state Supreme Court ultimately upheld the tax in July 2018.

» READ MORE: How Mayor Kenney’s soda tax ignited controversy and impacted Philadelphia

Four months later, the first and only bond issued to date resulted in about $90 million for Rebuild. (A second $85 million bond is scheduled to be issued before next summer.) Other investments followed, including from the William Penn Foundation, which committed $100 million over 10 years to Rebuild — much of it contingent on the bond issuance.

Through 2019, Rebuild’s staff partnered with vendors who could get the community engagement process and renovations underway. Some of the projects were managed by city staff and the Redevelopment Authority, and others were handled by nonprofit organizations that the city contracted. City Council members who represent the districts where each project was located also had sway.

But the mixed model complicated things for Rebuild staff, which had less control over the timeline on projects managed by nonprofits.

“We felt like things maybe weren’t moving quite as quickly as we had hoped with the nonprofit partnerships,” Strong said. “So we started doing more of the work in-house.”

Strong took over at the helm in early 2020 after the now-former executive director of Rebuild abruptly resigned in late 2019. And pressure was mounting, with Council members, park advisory boards, and local activists publicly criticizing Rebuild’s pace and shrinking scope.

Then came the pandemic.

Construction stopped, the city faced a massive budget hole, and some nonprofits managing Rebuild projects prioritized emergency functions such as distributing food.

High levels of inflation and severe supply chain disruptions continued through much of 2021 and 2022. Projects had to be reevaluated and, in some cases, the calculus changed.

Before the pandemic, initial projections were that each Rebuild project would range from about $500,000 at the low end to $5 million at the upper end. Today, some are expected to cost more than $20 million.

Strong said some of the projects weren’t adequately funded from the start, “especially with the way Rebuild was branded and touted and shared with the city.” She said, at times, Rebuild staff visited a site expecting to make one fix but evaluated the space and needed to do much more.

“They were rudimentary budgets with a transformational vision,” she said.

In total, Rebuild has committed $390 million to the initial cohort of 72 projects, according to a November report sent to City Council.

» READ MORE: Philly’s soda tax is paying for upgrades to rec centers. But Mayor Kenney and City Council disagree on the pace.

Shawn McCaney, executive director of the William Penn Foundation, said it became increasingly clear as costs escalated that Rebuild would not be able to renovate hundreds of facilities.

“That’s a big, important takeaway for us: that it’s really important to manage expectations going in,” he said, adding: “Enormous challenges aside, you still need to do planning, design, community engagement. Projects don’t come out of the ground in 12 months.”

In addition to the external factors, Rebuild’s own process was lengthy and involved several layers of community engagement and resident feedback. Strong said it would have been easier to take a “cookie-cutter approach,” such as giving every park the same playground equipment, but that wouldn’t have worked for the city’s varied communities.

The administration also had ambitious diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, and members of City Council pressed the administration for months over Rebuild’s diversity initiatives.

City officials saw the program as a way to improve diversity in the building trades and contract with minority- and female-owned small businesses that hadn’t worked with the city before. But partnering with new vendors is often more time-consuming than contracting with those that already have experience performing city work.

“When you really want to work with small businesses and increase their capacity, and you really want to do authentic community engagement,” Strong said, “neither of those are built for speed.”

Since its inception, Rebuild has contracted with upward of 700 vendors, and more than 57% of its contract dollars — or nearly $111 million — have been committed to businesses with nonwhite or female owners. That’s significantly higher than the city overall, which aims to direct 35% of contract dollars to diverse businesses.

The city has also launched several programs for businesses and workers involved in Rebuild’s efforts, including a workforce development program that’s had almost 100 graduates — 96% of whom are people of color — and provides a pipeline to a union apprenticeship or job. Rebuild has also provided programs and supports to dozens of businesses and what the city calls “emerging vendors.”

» READ MORE: How Rebuild led the way in making it easier for diverse contractors to get city work

City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, who is expected to take over as Council president in January, said Rebuild’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is a matter of “social equity and social justice.”

“It should be noted when we’re being intentional in our policies and our actions that we are addressing it to make sure that people from all different backgrounds have a seat at the table,” Johnson said.

Some of Rebuild’s diversity and inclusion goals haven’t been met.

While Rebuild is just 2% short of its goal of having 45% of work hours completed by women or people of color, it is not meeting its own goals in several specific categories. For example, the goal was for nonwhite skilled workers to complete 40% of hours, but as of November, that number was 34%.

In addition, women accounted for just 2% of the hours worked by both skilled workers and laborers — short of Rebuild’s 5% goal.

Rebuild will have to be sustained in some manner through Parker’s administration, given how many projects are only partially completed. Some large upgrades, such as a $26 million renovation at Francis J. Myers Recreation Center in Southwest Philadelphia, aren’t scheduled to be completed until 2025.

Parker has said repeatedly that she supports the Rebuild program and investments in the city’s public spaces, including saying she’d like the city to double funding to the parks and recreation department — which currently has a $79 million annual allocation — by the end of her first term.

» READ MORE: With less funding, Philly’s city parks rank worse nationally

But Parker has also said that her administration would look to “make changes in areas where there may be waste or inefficiency.”

“We must fund all efforts to ensure we have parks and recreation spaces that are accessible, clean, safe, and inclusive for all Philadelphians,” she said during the campaign, “but it is imperative that we do that strategically and efficiently.”

McCaney, of the William Penn Foundation, said any increase to the parks and recreation budget would be welcomed, especially as the city looks to the maintenance phase of Rebuild.

“It’s a concern that we’re investing in repairs or renovations like this that they’re able to be sustained and maintained,” he said.

No matter what the next administration does, Johnson said the remaking of city spaces will always be “one of the defining, key legacies of Mayor Jim Kenney.”

“He decided to invest in our parks, our recreation centers, and our playgrounds in neighborhoods for young people who aren’t fortunate enough to go down the Shore for the summertime or go to Disney World,” Johnson said. “But they can enjoy themselves in a high-quality rec center, park, and neighborhood.”