K&A | The Camden Kroc Center

The Camden Kroc Center Designing Dynamic Environments for Community

A Beacon of Hope and Agent of Change— At a cost of $90 million, and with 120,000 square feet of programming, The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Camden, New Jersey is one of 27 similar state-of-the-art community centers being built nationwide, funded in part through a $1.6 billion gift to The Salvation Army from the estate of Mrs. Joan Kroc, wife of the late McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.

In the design and construction of these facilities throughout the country, The Salvation Army aims to establish Beacons of Hope — ­ creating safe and vibrant gathering places within their respective communities, offering local area residents, both young and old, a place where they can come together for the purposes of education, exercise, worship, community engagement, health and social services, and a variety of other programs, activities and civic amenities aimed at strengthening the social fabric.

—Kitchen & Associates

Sensitivity to Site with an Emphasis on Walkability— From an architectural perspective, the project, despite its enormous scale, was designed to reflect in character the neighboring residential streetscape and surrounding environs — utilizing a vocabulary of both one- and two-story structures, along with creative setbacks, and a wide variety of materials, textures and colors at the building’s façade. Inherent in the overall design is the careful consideration paid to the resulting walkability of the site as it relates to its immediate context, blending access between adjacent neighborhoods and the Kroc Center campus.

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Photography Credit: United States Secret Service

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Representing the successful reclamation of a 24-acre portion of a former 100-acre landfill and designated brownfield, the completed Camden Kroc Center, nearly three football fields in length, encompasses over 120,000 square feet of community programming and services aimed directly at the Mind, Body and Spirit of local area residents, end-users and visitors.

The remediation of the site was seen by the City and other local stakeholders as an ideal opportunity to expedite the redevelopment of local area brownfield sites that currently border this two-mile stretch of the Delaware River.

There are a variety of exterior programmatic amenities for the local Camden community and its residents, including basketball courts, a regulation size little league baseball field with lighting for night games, a softball field, a pitch for soccer, lacrosse and field hockey, a playground, and a network of meandering landscaped walking paths with connections to future waterfront nature trails.

Additionally, a 300-foot buffer zone has been maintained between the site and the neighboring Delaware River as a habitat for a family of American Bald Eagles found nesting at the site.

As construction of the Camden Kroc Center moved forward, plans to remediate and re-use the balance of the 100acre landfill site (a total of 86 acres) took on added priority within the local community, ultimately leading to vision planning for the Cramer Hill Waterfront Park, an initiative that will offer residents a new open space park with a multi-use greenway trail and direct access to both the Cooper River and Delaware River Back Channel.

All interior programming at the Kroc Center connects via a central 8,000 square foot indoor Town Plaza gathering space (seen opposite page), offering a welcome center and cafĂŠ, and situated beneath a spectacular glass skylight.

Designed to appeal to families of all income levels, as of February 26, 2015, only five months after opening, the center reported over 4,900 registered members, and over 55,000 unique instances of those members utilizing services at the facility. As of March 1, 2016 the membership at The Kroc Center had grown to nearly twice that at 8,500 strong.

Beneath its roof, this amenity-rich facility offers Camden a wealth of recreational, health, educational, cultural, family and spiritual programming, while simultaneously serving as a central administrative hub for all Salvation Army Citadel operations and services in the Tri-County region, providing administrative offices for Salvation Army staff.

One of the primary cultural attractions at the Camden Kroc Center is The Nardi Theater — a 200-seat, state-ofthe-art, black box performing arts space (shown at top, opposite page).

Designed in grand, two-story spaces topped by gabled skylight canopies, the Camden Kroc Center features both a modern indoor aquatic center with an 8-lane competition pool and spectator seating, and an adjacent indoor water park providing recreational water activities for the entire family.

Administrative offices for the Salvation Army Camden Citadel Corps can be seen overlooking each of theses stunning indoor water spaces.

There are a variety of social gathering spaces for teens and local area youth, a full-service senior center dedicated to the older residents of the Camden community, and a 250-seat chapel serving the spiritual needs of the community.

Social services on-site include a Family Life and Personal Development Center, a Library Learning Center, an Early Childhood Education Center serving 90 children, educational classrooms, art and music rooms, a computer lab, a modern commercial kitchen, and an outpatient health clinic operated by Cooper Hospital.

Interior fitness activities at the Camden Kroc Center include a state-of-theart weight room, a spinning room, an 11,000 square foot gymnasium with spectator seating, dance studios, a 30-foot rock climbing wall, and comprehensive locker room spaces with showers and dressing rooms.

Night leagues for a variety of sports, including basketball and pickle ball, are hosted at the center on a year-round basis, and classes and training programs are available for a multitude of physical fitness-related activities.

From the first day the Kroc Center opened its doors to the public in early October 2014, the center has been a vibrant, dynamic locus of community activity, with local residents enthusiastically taking advantage of the variety of recreational, social and cultural services offered. Youth athletic programs are occurring at night.

The basketball courts outside are replete with neighborhood children playing pick-up games. The chapel is busy, the water park full, and the Health Clinic is open and providing much-needed, critical services to the community.

Sustainability & Energy-Conscious Design— Although The Salvation Army did not pursue a LEED® application for this project, had a certification been pursued, a LEED® Gold rating could have been achieved—with sustainable features of the project including brownfield redevelopment, aquifer recharging with constructed wetlands and bioswales, regionally available construction materials, recycled content in building materials, dark sky compliant exterior lighting, ENERGY STAR™ lighting, daylighting of internal spaces, white roofing to reduce heat island effect, high-efficiency pool filtration systems, Energy Recover HVAC systems, low-VOC materials, waste steam separation, and on-site recycling.

After only five months in operation, energy savings at the center were far exceeding original design estimates — with water, gas and electric usage running at two-thirds of original expectations. After three years in operation, The Salvation Army continues to enjoy similar overall energy savings.

"I want to thank this outstanding facility, our hosts. The Salvation Army is doing great work, and the Ray Kroc Center here seems like just a wonderful, wonderful facility. So we're very proud of them. When you match courage with compassion, with care and understanding of the community like we've seen here in Camden, some really outstanding things can begin to happen." —President Barack Obama Speaking on Community Policing The Camden Kroc Center, 18 May 2015

Honors & Awards— 2014 New Jersey Future Smart Growth Award 2015 New Jersey Governor’s Conference Award Leading Public Private Partnership 2015 Urban Land Institute (Philadelphia Chapter) Awards for Excellence Finalist

Keith Peacock, AIA, AAA Associate, Project Manager (856) 854-1880 x213 kpeacock@kitchenandassociates.com —

Mary Ely, LEEDÂŽGA Director of Business Development (856) 854-1880 x322 mely@kitchenandassociates.com

Kitchen & Associates | 756 Haddon Avenue | Collingswood NJ 08108 | (856) 854-1880 | kitchenandassociates.com