The Gibbons PAL center on Rising Sun Avenue has been looking for a new home. It just got a little more time to find one.
Trinity Church Oxford, the PAL center’s longtime host, wants to develop its property, and has told the center it would have to leave by June. Recently, however, the church has given Gibbons another six months — to the end of the calendar year — Ted Qualli, PAL’s executive director, said last week. PAL’s new facilities manager, Kevin Frayne, will be focusing on finding a new location, Qualli said.
About 2,500 kids are signed up for the Gibbons center’s many programs. Where they will go when the center moves out is the big question. PAL’s top people have been trying to find a new home for the center with no luck, Qualli said. But having somebody concentrating managing the centers is “a big step forward for us,” Qualli said.
The Gibbons PAL Center has operated on the 6900 block of Rising Sun since 1969, PAL Commander Lt. William Eddis said last summer.
Trinity Church Oxford’s pastor, Father Richard Robyn, last year said the church can no longer afford to keep the property. Maintenance costs are so high, he said, that keeping the west end of the church’s property would financially overwhelm the more than 300-year-old Episcopal parish. The PAL center and the church’s other tenant, Oxford Child Care Center, already pay high rent. That income, however, doesn’t cover upkeep costs, and that forced the church to look for a developer.
The parish had explored leasing the ground for a senior citizen apartment building, Robyn said last summer. The church is looking for a commercial tenant.
Officer Anthony D’Aulerio, who has run Gibbons for more than 22 years, last year said a move a little to the north would be ideal.
Eddis said PAL has three basic requirements for a center: a basketball court, preferably with a high ceiling; rooms to set up a homework program and for an office for the officer who supervises the center; and bathrooms on the same floor as the court and the other rooms.
Gibbons also has a small field, but a new location without a field is not a deal-breaker, Eddis had said last year. Along with finding a new home for Gibbons, Frayne will be looking for new locations for six closed centers that had been in schools, Qualli said. None are in the Northeast, he said. ••
A new home for Gibbons PAL?
Do you have a property that would be ideal for a PAL center? Call PAL’s executive director Ted Qualli at 215–291–9000.
