On June 10, 2026, Swarthmore College hosted a town hall in the Park Avenue Community Center, where the school unveiled several revisions to its hotly debated Cunningham Fields development plan in front of over 120 attendees.
The college first conceptualized the “Cunningham Park” recreation complex in July 2024, citing the heavy usage of current athletics fields, inequities between varsity teams with regards to practice facilities, and the potential communal wellness benefits the project might promote.
The complex will incorporate the existing Cunningham Fields, an 18.5-acre plot of grass across the road from the Ben West House and parking lot, adding a field hockey pitch, two practice fields, and twelve tennis courts. The field hockey pitch and one of the practice fields will utilize artificial turf.
The Revisions
For over a year, residents have spoken out in Borough Council meetings and web campaigns in opposition to certain aspects of the plan, such as the proximity of recreational lighting and sound systems to residences and the rollout of polyethylene plastic turf, which some claim poses environmental and health risks.
The college has produced several redrafts of the development plan in response to community concerns. The most recent revisions announced at the town hall are as follows: first, the college will minimize lighting and sound footprints through strict curfews and state of the art technologies. Second, the proposed field hockey pitch will now feature sugarcane-derived turf blades rather than their traditional, oil-based counterparts. Third, an arboretum of trees, mounds, and shrubs will act as a 200-foot buffer between the athletic complex and College Avenue residences.
Some town hall attendees interpret the newest revisions as good-faith compromises made by the college.
“I do think the college has made a lot of accommodations, downscaling its plans somewhat,” borough resident Margaret Urban wrote in an email exchange with The Phoenix. “I think we all have gratitude in particular for the proposed 200-foot arboretum, which I personally would say is a very significant and welcome addition.”
However, Urban questions whether the college will commit to the proposed changes.
“Many are not sure they can trust the college to follow through on their promises in that area [the 200-ft arboretum].”
Urban tied her lack of confidence to previous resident disillusionment with the college’s alleged mismanagement of Clothier Field light and sound curfews.
Others see the revisions as guises that temporarily please residents but obfuscate standing points of contention in the development plan.
“The college is ‘sweetening the propaganda.’ I think that they are very good at creating an image of accomodation,” says borough resident Robin Schaufler, a community organizer working alongside Urban to challenge the development plan.
Still, residents acknowledge some changes the college has made to the Cunningham Park plan, such as lowering pathway lights to bollard height and increasing visitor parking capacity.
The College Responds to the Borough Community
The college formed a development plan working group in March 2026 composed of several Borough Council and Planning Commission members; college administrators, such as Vice President of Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch; and a “community liaison” identified to be Kristen Seymore, who is a Swarthmore resident with Borough Council experience.
Hirsch and Goldberg assert that sustaining the working group is an effort by the college to maintain neighborly relations with the borough community throughout the planning process.
In a July 31, 2026 Swarthmorean article titled “Cunningham Conflict: Part II,” Hirsch stated that the college “plan[s] to host additional community meetings as [it gets] closer to a final concept proposal.”
However, Vice President of Finance and Administration Rob Goldberg clarified in a recent interview with The Phoenix that “we [the college] don’t have any town hall-esque minds of meetings on the books, but that doesn’t mean our conversations with the borough residents won’t occur.”
Goldberg maintained that in the past, the college has had “lots of small meetings with neighbors, one-on-ones [and] small groups.”
Turf War
Even after the announced June 10 revisions, the fields’ surface material remains a major source of contention. Concerned residents express dissatisfaction with the college’s choice to implement sugarcane-derived turf blades.
Schaufler attests that the sugarcane is converted into polyethylene through an energy-intensive manufacturing process before reaching the field. “It’s indistinguishable from oil-based polyethylene [turf],” Schaufler said.
Schaufler and Urban also cited a 2026 Finnish study that finds a correlation between increased playtime on natural surfaces (as opposed to pavement and polyethylene turf) and better developmental health outcomes in children. They criticized borough parents who support the Swarthmore Recreation Association’s (SRA) Memorandum of Understanding with the college, which allows for SRA youth sports programming in Cunningham Park. Urban points to what she believes is parents’ complicity in the installation of potentially harmful artificial turf.
Other resident grievances regarding polyethylene turf include the introduction of toxin-carrying microplastics into adjacent environments and Urban Heat Island effects, which occur when certain surfaces absorb large amounts of heat and warm the general area.
A five-strong contingent of concerned residents, Schaufler and Urban included, recommend that the college implement natural grass fields in solidarity with Michigan State University, which supplied natural turfgrass plots developed by its Turfgrass Management Program for 2026 FIFA World Cup matches.
Urban has located several environmental science and policy experts from UMass Lowell’s Toxics Use Reduction Institute, Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, and environmental consulting firm New Environmental Horizons, who have historically vouched for natural grass fields and would like to challenge the college’s complacency with artificial turf. She hopes to introduce these experts when future opportunities to interface with the college arise.
“They [the college] have some experts they’re going to bring in to defend their position on artificial turf,” Urban explained. “We need to have some experts to counter them.”
During their Sept. 17, 2026 Planning and Zoning meeting, the Borough Council released draft language for an ordinance tentatively titled, “Banning the Installation of Artificial Turf in the Borough of Swarthmore,” with artificial turf defined as “any synthetic surface material made to resemble natural grass.” In drafting the ordinance, councilmember David Boonin echoed commonplace health and environmental concerns expressed in other borough policies on artificial turf.
However, resident attendees spoke out about the ordinance’s second page, which presented a list of criteria developers were required to satisfy in order to bypass the ban. Requirement examples include proving that artificial turf is the only reasonable surface for the proposed use while considering natural grass alternatives and demonstrating that all reasonable environmental precautions are taken during turf installation and management.
To residents, the requirements are too lenient, creating a loophole in the ban through which, as councilmember Virginia Thompson noted, “You can drive a truck.”
The ban ordinance will not affect the development plan’s trajectory if the college wins necessary zoning code amendments and receives approval from Borough Council before the draft is finalized. According to Goldberg, “A future set of restrictions will maybe constrain us way down the road, but it shouldn’t constrain us in this particular [Cunningham Park] project.”
Construction Timeline Under Work
The development schedule is currently in limbo. “I think we’re a couple years out,” Goldberg said. “My sense is that we won’t be ready to open a renovated Cunningham Field probably for another two years.”
Goldberg attributed timeline uncertainties to long-drawn ordinance negotiations with the borough. Additionally, in Swarthmore’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan, SEPTA proposes the conversion of South Cunningham lot, currently used for student parking, into a multi-use retail and residential “Town Center North,” complicating matters further. The two developments must work in conjunction, as SEPTA must acquire Cunningham land from the college to bring Town Center North to fruition.
Goldberg and Hirsch are also uncertain about the substitute practice locations for club sports teams during the twelve to eighteen month long Cunningham Park construction process.
Fortunately, not all athletics activity will be concentrated on Clothier Field during the transition period. Goldberg assured that the college will notify varsity and club teams, the larger college community, and the borough of a robust transition plan, which may involve borrowing field time from local schools, far in advance of construction.
“I know our students have endured disruption across campus the past couple of years with all the [construction] work,” Hirsch said. “We won’t leave the students hanging during construction. I think the takeaway [here] is we are deeply invested in supporting the student experience.”
“We believe there’s real benefit for the campus community and real benefit for the neighbors in Swarthmore,” Goldberg added.
“I have strong ties to the college and feel that the college contributes a great deal to the town,” Urban reflected. “In the case of the proposed ‘Cunningham Park,’ however, I [and] others find ourselves very much opposing the college. My message is: we need some individual as well as institutional responsibility.”
After the Q&A section of the June 10 town hall, the college invited attendees to email any project comments to its community inbox, promising to consider feedback for the next plan proposal.
