Reclaiming the city’s East Park Canoe House is on the “fast track,” Fairmount Park executive director Mark A. Focht said Tuesday, but park officials are still awaiting a consultant’s report on needed repairs, due in early May. Rowing teams from Temple University and three local high schools – Father Judge, LaSalle and North Catholic – were forced out of the house Feb. 15 after the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections cited the building for structural problems in January. Focht said there is no plan to drive the schools from the canoe house, and that talk of the Fairmount Park edging the schools out in favor of a new public school rowing program amounts to "rumors" that have never been discussed with him.
A question to be answered is whether the city will charge the schools rent to use the boathouse once repairs are made. Focht said it's too early to make that determination, without even knowing the future of the boathouse at the moment. "There's a lot between the point where we are and the point we want to be," Focht said.
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