In his budget address next week, Mayor Jim Kenney will outline what could be a signature initiative for his first term: a major push to repair and improve parks, recreation centers, and libraries in neighborhoods across the city.

The initiative would involve the city selling $300 million in bonds, plus securing funding from the state and federal governments and philanthropic foundations that could bring the total investment to around $500 million over the next few years, Kenney said in an interview on Wednesday. Kenney has been dropping hints since taking office that his administration would focus investment on public infrastructure in neighborhoods, touting the benefits of improving parks and recreation centers in his annual address to the Chamber of Commerce last week.

On Wednesday, he said the initiative is about giving communities the public spaces they deserve.

“When we have a football league in South Philadelphia where we have suburban people come into our communities and look at what our kids have to play with, and then our kids go out to the suburbs and play in pristinely manicured fields, it makes us feel like second-class citizens, and we’re not,” he said. “I think this investment will give people in every community a sense of equity and fairness, that we care about them and we value them as citizens.”

The city has struggled to maintain parks and recreation centers for years, and it shows.

At Vare Recreation Center in Grays Ferry on Wednesday morning, windows were drafty, patched up with plywood or stuffed with cloth, and some tiles in the auditorium’s drop ceiling dangled precariously. Some days, the heat runs full-blast, making it stuffy in the upstairs classroom where about 40 children attend after-school programs, according to Cecile Kase, who’s in charge of maintenance at Vare. Other days, it doesn’t even turn on.

“I’m hoping it takes us through our winter, but there’s been days when we’ve come in here and we had no heat at all,” Kase said.