PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Construction is underway on a long-awaited project to turn a paved schoolyard in Cobbs Creek into a green community playground.
The transformation of the 2-acre asphalt schoolyard outside Add B. Anderson Elementary School has been four years in the making. Third-graders at Anderson helped to design a turf field, running track and basketball court for their dream schoolyard.
"I was impressed by their brilliance as third graders to be able to say, this is where we should put the rain garden versus the basketball hoop versus where the track should be versus where the playground equipment," Anderson principal Laurena Zeller told KYW Newsradio. "That takes a level of brilliance."
Unfortunately, the project was delayed by the pandemic. However, as Zeller told the Cobbs Creek community on Tuesday — and her now-seventh graders — that construction is finally beginning.
"It was very emotional to be able to finally deliver on a promise and a commitment that I made to them, but also most importantly to the students, who I kept saying, 'It's happening. It's coming,'" Zeller said.
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The $700,000 project is funded by the School District of Philadelphia, the Trust for Public Land, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and L.L. Bean.
"When we came to Anderson, we found a community that had this tremendous asphalt space that doing very little good for anyone at any point in time, and saw a real transformative opportunity," said Owen Franklin, Pennsylvania State Director for The Trust for Public Land.
The turf field and safety surfacing will reduce stormwater runoff by allowing rain to seep through, Franklin explained. "A good portion of the asphalt will be gone" he said. "We look to take hard surface and replace it with porous surface."
Anderson is the latest of a dozen Philadelphia schoolyards rebuilt by the Trust for Public Land in recent years. "It just points out that investing in our kids, investing in our students, is well, well, worth it," said Mayor Jim Kenney at Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony.
"This is what the world should look like," Franklin said. "This is fairness. This is equity. This is not excess. This is not luxury. This is a community playground. This is a playground hat supports education and community cohesion. Everyone should have this."
Construction is expected to be completed by summer.