Charlestown moves forward with conceptual design for civic complex
Jan. 4—CHARLESTOWN — The Charlestown Redevelopment Commission has approved work orders for a conceptual design for a new civic complex at Shadow Lake Park.
HWC Engineering will be working with the city to complete a conceptual design for the civic complex. They will have to take a few months to create a conceptual design with all the feedback they will receive from stakeholders and city staff members.
The 70 acres of land was donated by Sharon Kleinert to be turned into a park She wanted most of the land to remain largely open green space.
"We're looking at taking a smaller portion of that (land) on the road facing on High Jackson to provide some kind of multi-use civic complex," said Treva Hodges, Charlestown's mayor.
Once the design period is over, a feedback session will begin for residents.
"We hope that by summertime we will be able to schedule some additional community feedback sessions," said Hodges. "Our residents and our stakeholder groups can come visit and see those rendering and provide feedback about what the next step would look like."
She added that this will give the city and the stakeholders an idea about the budget and what the cost to develop the land into a civic complex will be.
The conceptual plan will also get cover zoning ordinances, geographical scan, topography, a wet land inventory and floodway work.
"Then they're (HWC) going to have a series of planning meetings where they're going to be able to consider what types of programming that land would be best used for," Hodges said. "They'll look at some case studies that exist in community centers, so that they can get an idea and share with us an appropriate square footage range."
The city and firm will also be doing walkthroughs for a trail network and how it could be connected from the location of the civic center to the Shadow Lake Business Park and into the residential areas as well as the middle school.
Charlestown is building a new civic center due to the original one being condemned in 2016.
The redevelopment commission also approved a conceptual design for an expansion for the Family Activity Center in Charlestown. The expansion will be called The Depot.
"It's going to provide a hangout and attraction space for teens and young adults," Hodges said. "It'll include sand volleyball and some kind of outdoor hangout area with Wi-Fi and then some VR games and just a space that kind of targets our older kids."
