New York’s Staten Island. On Friday, the Advance/SILive.com reported that construction workers had started work on a new leisure complex that will cost $92 million.
An Advance/SILive.com photographer visited the early stages of construction almost a year after Mayor Eric Adams and numerous other city leaders attended a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center in February 2024.
“It is a fitting tribute to Mary Cali Dalton, a leader who understood the power of parks and public space,” Adams said in February, adding that the Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center would serve as a community center where Staten Islanders may come together to study, play, and enjoy public space. Whether it’s parks, jobs, housing, or quality of life enhancements, our administration is eager to keep investing in Staten Island and providing for all of its citizens.
As part of the city’s North Shore Action Plan, which involves a more than $400 million investment in the region, the new leisure center will replace the former George Cromwell leisure Center. The Democrat in charge of the North Shore, Councilmember Kamillah Hanks, led that action plan.
On Friday, January 3, 2025, construction workers are working on the Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center.(Jan Somma-Hammel/Staten Island Advance)
After serving the Island for more than 70 years and becoming seriously dilapidated, the city demolished the Cromwell Center. The Mary Cali Dalton Center should be finished by the end of 2025, according to a February statement from city officials.
Hanks’ predecessor, former Councilmember Debi Rose, spearheaded the effort to find a replacement for Cromwell while she was in office and obtained the initiative’s initial financing prior to her departure.
According to Adams, the new Mary Cali Dalton Center will be the first city-built recreation facility in 14 years and will be located above a parking lot next to Lyons Pool.
The Mary Cali Dalton Center will be a spacious 45,000 square feet when finished, offering a range of amenities to guests.
Plans for the future Mary Cali Dalton Center are depicted in an artist’s rendering. (Source: New York City Parks)NYC Parks
The top level of the building will have a teen center, a dance studio, and separate areas for strength and cardio exercise, according to an artist’s rendering of the future facility.
There will be two locker rooms, a main lobby, and a gymnasium with two full-size basketball courts on the main floor.
Although 2025 may seem like a short time frame for a project of this magnitude, a new city construction approach is partly to blame for the rapid turnaround.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Adams and Staten Island native Tom Foley, Commissioner of Design and Construction, emphasized the project’s importance as one of the first new recreation centers on Staten Island in more than ten years and one of the first to be finished with a design-build approach.
By removing the possibility of disagreements between the designers and builders, design-build assigns fewer organizations to handle both the project’s design and construction, which frequently lowers the project’s overall cost and completion time.
According to Foley, this center is a tremendous step forward for the city’s capital program and the administration’s attempts to enhance capital project delivery, in addition to being a fantastic step forward for recreation in the borough. We anticipate that this project will be finished by the end of next year using Design-Build, saving two whole years. In order to provide these desperately needed facilities to communities sooner and at a lesser cost, this project highlights the necessity of reforming the Department of Design and Construction Commissioner as a new state body.
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