$56M Kingswood Community Center project breaks ground

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on the site of a soon-to-be new 81,000 square feet Kingswood Community Center, a project some say has been in the works for 80 years since the original center began operations out of Kingswood United Methodist Church in 1946 with a mission of helping families in the Riverside neighborhood. l RENDERING COURTESY OF EDiS

WILMINGTON – Many children living in the heart of Wilmington, like engineer Deonta Martin, grew up inside the walls of Kingswood Community Center and now he, and a host of other leaders, are helping the center soar to new heights.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on the site of a soon-to-be new 81,000 square feet Kingswood Community Center, a project some say has been in the works for 80 years since the original center began operations out of Kingswood United Methodist Church in 1946 with a mission of helping families in the Riverside neighborhood.

Leaders like Kingswood Executive Director Logan Herring, who now manages the center with The WRK Group, say they are ready to breathe new life into all of their programming which still operates out of a 17,000 square feet center on Bowers Street in Wilmington. History would go on to show that the church continued to use its original Kingswood Community Center while the new center was in operation through 1969.

As the need for a new center has grown exponentially in the Riverside area, the vision has grown along with it from 34,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet to its current rendering which is more than double the originally planned size and will include its Early Learning Academy, senior programming through the Jimmy Jenkins Senior Center and other programs.

The WRK Group, which works hand in hand with the Kingswood Community Center, also manages REACH Riverside, a nonprofit with a mission to revitalize 700 housing units in the community surrounding Kingswood called Imani Village, and The Warehouse, and “oasis in Northeast Wilmington . . . developed ‘for teens, by teens’ and serves as an innovative, one-stop center serving youth ages 13 to 24,” according to the group.

“You see, the Warehouse gets a lot of attention. It’s the sexy project, right? You know, it’s a beautiful place when you walk in but what’s the most beautiful thing about it is it’s led by the people who are most impacted by the work they do and that’s our teens. REACH Riverside, you look at the backdrop, right? You look at the new housing behind me, that gets national notoriety,” he explained. “But the one core value, the last core value of all our core values, is Kingswood is the foundation for everything.”

Local leaders said those core values will cost millions of dollars to see the project to fruition – $56 million to be exact. Of that amount, Governor John Carney and state legislators helped secure $10 million through Delaware’s Bond Bill for fiscal year 2022, with another $4 million coming from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and $13 million stemming from Congressional Directed Spending with the help of U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester. 

In addition to a new community center, The WRK Group also received a HUD Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant of $4,500,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to benefit housing options surrounding the new community center in the Riverside community. 

“This project doesn’t just include the community center, it includes all of the housing surrounding the community center. This is a whole community effort and we’re delighted, the state is delighted, to be a huge participant in it,” Carney said. “Where I grew up in Claymont, there was a saying, ‘Money talks, BS walks. You hear me? Money talks, BS walks and the state has $15 million in this particular part of the project. In the housing project, it’s millions and millions more. I got one budget left for that $10 million. All I need is legislative support.”

While the funding has helped launch this project into the future, the leadership behind the scenes was celebrated with great fervor during the two-hour-long ceremony. 

For young leaders like Martin, who grew from a young child enrolled in the early childhood academy at Kingswood, summer camp programs and other community-based opportunities to a teen employee at the center to a project engineer with EDiS where he now oversees $80 million in projects including a local stem hub and new community center, the journey to helping the center expand has come full circle like it has for many others involved.

“Today, I take pride in building a new Kingswood, the place that helped shape me into the man that I am today. This community needs a place where the future generations can grow in a safe environment,” he told the crowd during the groundbreaking ceremony. “When we think about building this new building, it does nothing but fill my heart because I’ll be a part of a positive impact for future generations to come.”