{"id":110016,"date":"2026-02-10T12:34:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/110016\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:34:06","slug":"philly-love-park-visitors-center-could-reopen-for-u-s-250th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/110016\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly LOVE Park visitors center could reopen for U.S. 250th"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>The spaceship-shaped Philadelphia landmark on the corner of LOVE Park could soon get another lease on life.\n<\/p>\n<p>The former visitors center is sometimes referred to as the flying saucer due to its oval shape. It was once destined to become a restaurant, but that plan never came to fruition. Last year, the building\u2019s custom-made curved glass panels from Europe played host to <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/love-park-visitor-center-philadelphia-immigrants-films\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a public art display with portraits of city residents<\/a> showing off their respective heritages.\n<\/p>\n<p>The facility has been closed since 2021, according to city officials, when the park was undergoing a complete <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/love-park-restaurant-philadelphia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">renovation ahead of the doomed restaurant idea<\/a>. The plan failed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues, and a subsequent request for proposals failed to gather any interest.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Since then, the city\u2019s Parks and Recreation Department went back to the drawing board, looking for creative ideas to reuse the space and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phlcontracts.phila.gov\/bso\/external\/bidDetail.sda?docId=B2626199&amp;mc_cid=dad1671f24&amp;mc_eid=e4082939cf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">issued a Request for Expression of Interest<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe received more than 50 different RFEIs during this process,\u201d said Katie Burns Kays, director of business and event development. The ideas they received had a consistent theme focusing on \u201clight vending and public programming.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Burns Kays said that translates into anything from a caf\u00e9, beer garden or light bar concept that will allow for events open to the public.\n<\/p>\n<p>A mandatory meeting at the space will be held for interested bidders on Feb. 18, with bids in by March 18.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11869,69,4001,71,70],"class_list":["post-110016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-love-park","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-250","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}