The fire that lit up Coogan Pavilion last fall may yet have a good outcome: Edgewood Park could soon be lit up by a glowing, glass-fronted, solar-powered community center.
At a meeting at the parks department’s Edgewood Avenue headquarters, neighbors got to see what that new center could look like.
City architect Bill MacMullen (pictured) displayed a model and floor plan for the new and improved Coogan Pavilion. The A‑frame parks building was seriously damaged by a two-alarm electrical fire that set the building ablaze last October.
The current Coogan.
MacMullen’s revamped Coogan Pavilion would be an open light-filled space, unlike the dark and underused building it was before the fire. His design earned high marks from the half-dozen neighbors at the meeting, and a promise from neighborhood Alderman Adam Marchand to push for the budget dollars to make it a reality.
The mayor’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year includes $300,000 in capital funds for the Coogan renovation. MacMullen said the city will receive another approximately $237,000 from fire insurance.
Parks chief Bob Levine, who served his last day in the job on Friday, said the project would take a year to complete.
Levine said the new Coogan would be used for parks activities including camps, and available to groups who want to use the space for events like classes or meetings. It would be open only for such purposes, not staffed daily and available for people to drop in, he said.
It wouldn’t be available for people to use long-term, like by a theater group that might want to store sets and equipment there, Levine said. “We don’t want anyone to move in.”
“In a way, the fire was a good thing,” MacMullen said at the parks meeting, which took place last Thursday evening. It’s allowed the city to have a “clean slate” to work with, he said.
Using a 3D model and a 2D floor plan, MacMullen talked through the center’s planned features and amenities. The central portion of the pavilion would be one large room that could be made into two with a folding partition. Part of the floor would be tiled, the other part would have a “resilient” gymnasium-style floor, suitable for activities like dance classes.
One wing would have a room for ping-pong and pool tables, and a large storage area. The other wing would have conference and meeting rooms. The pavilion would also have an office area and a “warming kitchen” for heating up pre-cooked food.
The new Coogan pavilion would be “not a dark place anymore,” MacMullen said. The plan is to “glaze it everywhere.” The two main walls of the central A‑frame portion would be almost entirely made of glass, allowing people, including police officers, to look right through the building at all hours.
MacMullen highlighted a number of planned new security features, including cameras, alarms, and a new metal “standing seam” roof. The slick roof would be harder to climb than the current shingles (pictured), preventing people from getting on top of the pavilion and painting graffiti, MacMullen said. Climbers would be further deterred by a “bear claw” fence around the roof perimeter, the kind that curves down at the top to prevent ascension.
The building would have all new LED energy-efficient lighting, powered by a solar panel bolted to the roof, MacMullen said.
“That’s awesome,” said Chris Heitmann, head of the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance.
“This is beautiful. Thank you,” said Westville neighbor Laura Cahn (at left in photo).
The new Coogan will be lighter, brighter and more useful to more people, Levine (at right) said. “It’s just going to be a different place,” he said. “What’s been there before was just never right.”