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Funding to Rebuild Cromwell Center Included in City Council Budget Proposal

By Nicholas Rizzi | April 5, 2017 4:09pm
 The Parks Department plans to rebuild the demolished Cromwell Recreation Center on a parking lot at Lyons Pool.
The Parks Department plans to rebuild the demolished Cromwell Recreation Center on a parking lot at Lyons Pool.
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New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

STATEN ISLAND — The City Council is calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to fund the reconstruction of the demolished Cromwell Recreation Center in next year's budget.

The council included rebuilding the center — proposed for Lyons Pool on what's now a parking lot and estimated to cost between $90 to $100 million — in its response to the mayor's preliminary budget for fiscal year 2018.

"Mayor de Blasio has signaled that rebuilding Cromwell would be part of our discussions for a potential rezoning of the Bay Street Corridor. However, this is something we need now," Councilwoman Debi Rose, whose district the center is in, said in a statement.

"Cromwell is not about planning for future growth, it’s about meeting the needs of people already here," she added. "Including Cromwell in our budget response is an important step forward."

The Parks Department completed a $700,000 study in February to evaluate three locations for the center, and chose a plan that would build the new facility on top of Lyons Pool's parking lot, which is across the street from the old center.

The plan calls for a three-story, 95,000-square-foot building with four multi-sport courts with competition-sized basketball courts and play spaces for children and teens, according to the Parks Department.

The cty would also demolish the unused diving pool at the site and replace it with a new children's playground and splash park.

Cromwell Center Replacement Feasibility Study by DNAinfoNewYork on Scribd

The original Cromwell Center opened on Pier 6 in Tompkinsville in 1936, but partially collapsed in 2010 and was eventually demolished in 2013, the Staten Island Advance reported.

Since then, a group called Let's Rebuild Cromwell Recreation Center has been pushing the city to replace the facility, and Borough President James Oddo included the project in his "Quadrangle Offense" plan to put four community centers in the North Shore.

The Parks Department did not have a timeline or funding for the project yet, but said at a Community Board 1 meeting in February that it would happen after de Blasio's plan to build a $50 million indoor pool in the borough.

In its budget response, the City Council wrote that with the huge wave of redevelopment heading to the neighborhood, the area needs the center sooner than later.

"In the very vicinity of Cromwell Recreation Center’s former location, Staten Island’s North Shore waterfront is experiencing the largest economic development project in over 30 years, with the development of a new court house, an observation wheel, malls with high end stores, a luxury hotel, and exclusive waterfront apartments,” the council's response reads.

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for public use facilities. Staten Island has not broken ground on a single facility for public use on the North Shore waterfront."