Ardmore residents hoping for a late-summer swim will have to look elsewhere. The Ardmore Avenue Pool will not open at all this season, Lower Merion Township's Parks and Recreation Department confirmed the week of Aug. 11, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Lower Merion newsletter.

It won't reopen until 2027.

The township had hoped to open the pool for at least part of the summer, but ongoing construction on the adjacent Ardmore Avenue Community Center and park made that impossible. The pool has been closed since summer 2025, after township commissioners voted unanimously in March 2025 to shut it down to accommodate the community center build.

The new facility is now expected to open in early 2027. That represents a meaningful delay from earlier projections. In February, Ardmore Initiative executive director Alec Hersh told the Lower Merion and Narberth Federation of Civics that the community center would be completed by early fall 2026. No public explanation for the timeline shift has been provided.

What the new center will include

The Ardmore Avenue Community Center will feature flexible programming space, a full-size gymnasium and community gathering areas, according to a state funding announcement from state Rep. Tim Briggs. Park improvements surrounding the center will include on-site parking, redesigned basketball, tennis/pickleball and volleyball courts, an accessible playground, and a picnic area next to the pool.

Briggs called the project an investment in modern community spaces when he announced a $500,000 Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant for the center on July 16. That grant built on a previously awarded $3 million RACP grant, bringing total state investment through the program to $3.5 million.

The project is part of roughly $50 million in capital investments across the township, as Township Manager Ernie McNeely described at an April civic association meeting. The community center's share of that total has not been disclosed.

Broader Ardmore development picture

The community center sits within a cluster of major Ardmore projects. The $59 million Ardmore Train Station renovation opened March 23 after six years of construction, and The Piazza, a 270-apartment mixed-use development on Lancaster Avenue, is expected to finish in fall 2027.

The township has not announced a specific month for the community center's opening or a next public update on the project's progress.