Kingston neighborhood no longer has its swim club, but a $5-million Cherry Hill park soon will rise in its place.

For more than 60 years, the Kingston Swim Club in the middle of Cherry Hill's Kingston neighborhood kept thousands of children splashing away during the summer months.

The nonprofit club was built on nearly four acres donated by the Kingston Estates development builder, which used the swim club as a marketing tool to attract young families to the new $16,990-and-up homes. The club lasted a few generations but closed in 2020, when the bank foreclosed.

Although the pool is gone, and the clubhouse has been demolished, the empty land on Deland Avenue will be transformed into a $5 million Township park that town officials expect to open next summer.

"This will be a flagship park in Cherry Hill," Mayor David Fleisher told 70and73.com in an interview. "This is the way it's supposed to go."

Kingston ad 11 Jun 1960, Sat Courier-Post (Camden, New Jersey) Newspapers.com

The Township worked with the Greater Kingston Civic Association to design a park that served the community.

"The Township considered all input from the community and was responsive, which resulted in a plan that we approved and are all eager to see come to fruition," said association head Yolanda (Yoli) Lorenz. "We voiced our appreciation for their vision and commitment to this quality-of-life project."

In 2020, lender TD Bank threatened foreclosure because the club was not able to make its monthly $2,200 payments on its clubhouse, built in 2006 to replace the crumbling cinder block original. 

"It was at risk of being developed," Fleisher said.

The Township stepped in and paid $441,000 for the club, which the mayor said "is a special property, centrally located in one of our largest neighborhoods."

Fleisher said the Township used its Open Space Trust Fund to buy the land and will finance the rest through its capital budget. The project will go out to bid this fall.

The Township will try to preserve as many mature trees as possible, but new trees and other greenery will be planted, he said.

A resolution to buy playground equipment for the new Kingston Park was approved by Township Council at the August 19 meeting. 

Although the park will not be at a level of the all-inclusive playgrounds being built at Camden County parks, one of the "key guiding principles" was to make it inclusive for the full community, Fleisher said. The park also will have a walking trail.

Because the site decades ago was farmland, it required environmental remediation to rid the soil of pesticides and other pollutants that resulted from farming decades ago.

70and73.com previous reporting:

Sixty-four-year-old swim club in Cherry Hill faces foreclosure, falling to demographics, social change and a declining membership.