Grove City Council to revisit possibility of new community recreation-aquatics center
Grove City plans to take another look at the feasibility of establishing a new community recreation/aquatics center.
City Council May 16 voted 3-2 to approve a resolution to update the 2014 community-center study completed by Ballard King and Associates, a Colorado-based consulting firm.
The resolution, introduced by council member Roby Schottke, calls for updated square footage and cost estimates.
"The study has set on the shelf" since it was presented eight years ago, Schottke said. "People in this community have been asking for a community center. ... What we're trying to do here is simply take the 2014 community-center study and update it in terms of (potential) costs."
The 2014 study presented a vision for a community-center facility that would include a total 88,590 to 122,350 square feet of space.
The suggested features for the general area included a gymnasium, an auxiliary gym, an indoor track, a fitness area, multipurpose and meeting space, child-care and indoor play areas and a game room.
"It is anticipated that the range of probable costs for the general portion of the community center is $21 million to $30 million, with additional costs for an aquatic-center project at $5.7 million to $7.5 million," Ballard King concluded in its study.
After eight years, those figures are outdated, parks and recreation director Kim Conrad said.
"I don't even know what we would be looking at in today's numbers," she said.
It's also possible the amenities and features residents would want in a community center also have changed a bit since the study was completed, Conrad said.
The city is considering working with the parks board to update long-term planning for all parks and recreation facilities in Grove City, not just the community-center concept, she said.
Council members Christine Houk and Mark Sigrist voted against the resolution.
The city has a number of concept plans that "are in flux," including development of the Town Center park at the old library site on Park Street and the creation of an amphitheater as part of the new park in the Beulah Park Living development, Houk said.
More community feedback is needed to determine the details of each of these projects and the priority in which they should be completed, she said.
Before a consultant is hired to update the 2014 study, "we should have it more clearly defined as to what we're asking them to look at for us," Houk said.
All this resolution is designed to do is to provide better and more updated information as a first step in a community discussion about the potential feasibility of building a community center, Schottke said.
Hiring a consultant might not be necessary, he said.
"All we need to do is get the figures per square footage," and it's possible the city's own engineering team may be able to do that, Schottke said.
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This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Grove City Council to revisit idea of new recreation-aquatics center
