City Hall now says Summit Lake Community Center will reopen tomorrow -- well ahead of what they thought would take months to repair.

The repairs were needed on power transformers wiped out when a hit-skip car wreck creamed the pole holding the equipment that brought electricity to the center.

The City feared it would take up to eight weeks to fix but now says FirstEnergy found replacements faster than hoped and crews worked quickly to get it online.

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(City of Akron) Summit Lake Community Center will open tomorrow, Tuesday, January 17, a full six to eight weeks ahead of previous estimates.

Summit Lake Community Center has been closed for almost two weeks due to a one car hit-skip accident that caused the City of Akron’s transformers to fail, leaving the Community Center with no heat or electricity.

Since the accident occurred, First Energy employees and City of Akron employees have been working diligently to find a replacement transformer to serve the Community Center. The usual lead time for purchasing a large transformer such as the one at serving the Community Center is eight to ten weeks.

First Energy was able to find a similar sized transformer in their inventory in Cleveland. They quickly mobilized a team to deliver the unit to our Community Center. City crews and contractors arrived on-site and began the installation once the unit arrived.

“Our City workers along with our contractors and workers from First Energy pulled this off faster than expected,” said Rick Merolla, Akron’s Service Director. “We really wanted the Community Center up and running as quickly as possible, but this worked out even better than we dared to hope. I am grateful to First Energy for their help in this emergency.”