Following a string of missteps, including five contractor defaults since 2003, the St. James Park House, including all the surrounding paths and garden beds, is finally completed and ready for inspection, Parks Department officials said.

The park house, which was supposed to be completed in May 2004, is located next to the playground on the west side of the park. It contains rest rooms with water fountains inside as well as a meeting room with floor-length windows on all sides.

The meeting room is intended for a “multi-function use,” said Bruce Eisenberg, director of architecture at the Parks Department. For example, the room may be used for park employee meetings, as a lunchroom or for community programming.

Although the park house is finished, there is more reconstruction on the way.

Anticipated to begin in September 2007, the next phase of the park overhaul includes renovating the playground, pathway reconstruction in the northwest section of the park and reconstruction of the mall and adjoining pathways. Finally, the area in front of the park house and along Jerome Avenue will be reconstructed.

This next phase will cost $2.4 million and, unlike the park house, is a Croton project, meaning the money is coming from the Department of Environmental Protection as mitigation for building a giant water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

Construction should take about a year and be complete by fall 2008, according to the Parks Department.

Aside from official construction, Ida Levy, the St. James Park gardener, three community youths and two mentors, have begun a five-week-long summer gardening program sponsored by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, which publishes the Norwood News. Levy and the students are mostly weeding and clearing paths. Later in the summer, they plan to plant rose shrubs.

“They are very enthusiastic,” Levy said of her student helpers. “They seem to like what they’re doing.”