Renovation

The Smithsonian Institution's popular Insect Zoo will undergo a $500,000 renovation through the largesse of - get this - an extermination company. Atlanta-based Orkin Pest Control will fund the renovation as well as education programs for students and teachers. The rebuilt zoo will include an aquatic exhibit, rain forest and desert environs, and a backyard exhibit to help identify insects around the home. Ironically, the only termites currently at the Insect Zoo are not formally on display.

Strawbridge & Clothier this month undertook renovation of the interior of its department store in the Exton Square shopping mall. The new look will cost Strawbridge & Clothier $1.14 million, according to a building permit issued for the construction. The renovation work is expected to last until October. The store will have new wall facades, arches, carpets and drop ceilings, and shiny new lighting fixtures. "It's part of an ongoing renovation program," said William Timmons, public relations representative for the Strawbridge stores.

Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Commission is planning a renovation of LOVE Park that would end its status as a skateboarding mecca. Should it proceed with those plans, alter the plans to accommodate both skaters and other users, or is there another way to go? Tell us how you'd design LOVE Park. Send essays of about 150 words by April 22, including a phone number for verification, to Voices/LOVE, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. Send e-mail to inquirer.letters@phillynews.

Most renovation work in the Colonial School District should be completed by the start of the school year, Superintendent Richard Creasey told the school board Thursday night. "If you were to walk through the (Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School) building today, you'd see that 85 to 90 percent of all the lighting, ceiling work, carpeting and painting is completed, and that's good, because those are the last things that have to be done," he said. Creasey said much of the summer was spent restoring floors, ceilings and walls in the high school, which is in the final stages of a major renovation.

The six-year-old downtown Philadelphia Marriott is about to undergo its first major makeover. New mattresses, bedspreads, carpet and wallpaper are part of an $11 million room renovation project that is expected to begin Sept. 15 and end Feb. 1. "The renovation really shows Marriott's commitment to the city of Philadelphia," Matthew Carroll, a spokesman for Marriott International Inc., said. The $200 million hotel, with 1,400 rooms and an indoor walkway to the Convention Center, is considered an integral part of the city's convention business.

At least 370 students will step off the school bus this week at newly renovated Primos Elementary School. "Primos will make you proud," Assistant Superintendent James Blackburn told Upper Darby School District board members Tuesday night. The two-story school on Bunting Lane in the Primos section of Upper Darby was closed in 1981 because of declining enrollment. Now enrollment is increasing, officials said. About $3.1 million was spent this year on new windows, carpets, paint, telephone and electrical systems as well as fees to the project manager and architect, Nancy DeLibero, assistant business manager, said in an interview.

The $14.07 million plan to renovate and expand Upper Merion Area High School moved a step closer to implementation Wednesday night as the school board considered recommendations on project approvals from school officials. At the school board's workshop meeting, John E. Schank, director of business affairs, asked the board to approve specific projects that would renovate the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems; add to the athletic wing; relocate the library, and renovate the old library into a medical suite.

Judy Faulkner and Edith Silberstein say that when they look around at the Victorian-era houses of Merchantville, they see many of those homes in some state of historic restoration - perhaps an old porch is being rebuilt, or unattractive siding is being removed. "There's a real surge in restoration that we've noticed just on the exteriors of homes . . . within the last six months or year," Faulkner said. Those sights please the two women particularly, since Silberstein is the president and Faulkner is the secretary of the Merchantville Historical Society.

The Northampton Board of Supervisors voted to accept three bids for renovations to the township building at Wednesday night's meeting. H.C. Brody of Philadelphia was awarded a $380,445 contract for the general- contracting work, while Robert's Servicing of Warminster was awarded a $118,000 plumbing contract. The $27,800 electrical contract was awarded to John W. Kay Inc. of Richboro. The supervisors also voted to allocate $9,459. to the Tri-Hampton Rescue squad to help the squad pay for worker's compensation insurance to cover paid employes.

The Upper Merion Area school board has named the Quandel Group Inc. to be construction managers for its $13.6 million project to renovate the high school. The board picked the Harrisburg company Monday. There were 12 other applicants for the job. Quandel specializes in renovation and construction projects for school districts across Pennsylvania. The school board had unanimously approved a bond issue in late May to finance the renovations. Upper Merion's plan calls for major renovations in almost every part of the high school complex.

As a little girl, Evelyn Haines (nee Schufrieder), dreamed of marrying Prince Charming. Instead of living in a turreted castle, though, she and her prince would live in the big barn in Roxborough where she and her father bought produce every week. Evelyn didn't know why the barn held her spellbound. "There was just something about it," she says. Time went by. The barn, which was built in 1750, became a horse stable, then for two decades sheltered Girl Scout campers. Evelyn grew up, married a prince named Evan Haines, and moved to a condo nearby.

The nuns of the Immaculate Heart of Mary have taught generations of children in the Philadelphia area. And when they were too frail or sick to work they retired to Camilla Hall, an austere nursing home on the campus of Immaculata College in Malvern. Lately, the sisters have been retiring in droves. Almost a quarter of the order's 822 nuns live at Camilla Hall and that number is expected to grow over the next decade. "Our median age is 72," said Sister Anne Veronica, administrator of the nursing home.

It was the first game on Cherry Hill West's refurbished baseball field. It will be a tough act to follow. The host Lions made the most of the lush infield grass, as well as some sensational pitching and defense, and scored a 1-0 victory over Paul VI in an eight-inning instant classic Wednesday in an Olympic National game. "These games are why you play, why you coach," Cherry Hill West coach Dan McMaster said after his team won its fifth in a row and its second straight in walk-off fashion.

Burlington County officials who frequently say they don't want to spend taxpayers' money are now justifying a proposed $4.8 million renovation by saying it is needed for courthouse security. The project calls for eliminating multiple entrances at the seven-story courthouse and adjacent county administration building in Mount Holly. A single entrance for both buildings would make them safer, officials say. But the architectural plans and exhibits The Inquirer obtained through an open public records request show an array of unrelated extras that rarely have been mentioned publicly.

Thanks to the city Commission on Parks and Recreation, Temple University may finally be on the right course to find a Schuylkill River boathouse for its crew team. The commission has asked the university to investigate renovating the East Park Canoe House, which first opened in 1914, and Temple has agreed to consider that possibility, but no promises have been made. Initially, Temple wanted to cram a new 23,000-square-foot boathouse between the crumbling Canoe House and the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, choking a thin strip of land between the river and Kelly Drive.

A cautionary tale: One century, you're the "Eighth Wonder of the World" - the next, you're just another derelict. The Astrodome, the awe-inspiring home and namesake of the National League Houston Astros when it opened in 1965, has been unfit for occupancy since 2009, still has about $30 million in construction debt, and sits deteriorating next to Reliant Stadium, home of the NFL Houston Texans. The 'Stros? They are now in the American League and have played in a retractable-roof arena since 2000.

Temple University has agreed to take another look at renovating the dilapidated East Park Canoe House on the Schuylkill, putting on hold, until at least the end of April, plans to build a boathouse for its rowing team. The announcement, made public Friday in a letter from the Philadelphia Commission on Parks and Recreation to Mayor Nutter and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, followed a January public meeting at which many people criticized Temple's proposal to build a 23,000-square-foot boathouse near the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.

They weren't really looking for a house, Sissy Harris recalls, but her Realtor cousin invited Sissy and her husband to have a look at the brick dwelling with the slate roof anyway. Before they had finished touring the Greenville, Del., house, Jack Harris was ready to sign on the dotted line. Jack, a lawyer, is not a man who routinely acts in haste, but the 6,300-square-foot property enticed him, not only because of its open floor plan throughout three levels, but also because it had been renovated by the former owners and was in turnkey condition - serious pluses for a busy couple with two careers, three children, and two dogs.