Temple to review its plan on renovating Schuylkill canoe house

Temple University has agreed to take another look at renovating the dilapidated East Park Canoe House on the Schuylkill, putting on hold, until at least the end of April, plans to build a boathouse for its rowing team.

The announcement, made public Friday in a letter from the Philadelphia Commission on Parks and Recreation to Mayor Nutter and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, followed a January public meeting at which many people criticized Temple's proposal to build a 23,000-square-foot boathouse near the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.

Many said the plan violated a city ordinance requiring that anyone seeking to build on park land offer replacement land of similar value to the city. The law, passed by City Council in 2011, aims to maintain the city's vast network of parks.

Instead of green space, Temple offered to give the city $1.5 million to repair the East Park Canoe House. Temple and other rowing groups used that facility until 2008, when the city declared it unsafe and closed it. Since then, the university's rowers have been operating out of tents.

In a December letter to the Parks and Recreation Commission, Kenneth Lawrence Jr., Temple's senior vice president for government, community, and public affairs, said the 9,000-square-foot East Park Canoe House was too small for its rapidly expanding rowing program. The letter also said that if Temple renovated and expanded the East Park Canoe House, the university might still be required to find substitute property.

But discussions with members of the Parks and Recreation Commission prompted university officials to take a second look at that plan, Commission Chairwoman Nancy Goldenberg said in the letter to Nutter and Clarke.

Temple will decide on the possible renovation by April 30, Goldenberg said.

Lauren Bornfriend, executive director of the Philadelphia Parks Alliance, hailed the commission's decision as a victory for the new law.

"I think this is good," she said. "Taking an existing historical building and investing in it and using it, and not taking parkland that is used for other activities, is a great thing."