The Concord City Council will try again to make up its mind on a new Heights Community Center.
At this month’s meeting, the council will consider scaled-back options for the long-planned community center at the former Dame School. The building currently hosts offices and programming for the parks and recreation department, as well as a studio for Concord TV.
A lengthy wish list racked up cost estimates as high as $17 million for a new and expanded community center last year, but the council and the community balked at that price tag. So city officials have returned with new scenarios, priced between $3.5 million and $9.5 million. The cheapest was to renovate the existing building; the most expensive was to build entirely new.
“There’s a lot of community support, but the questions is, what can the community afford?” City Manager Tom Aspell said.
None of the options on the table in April will include the nonprofit Concord TV. Many residents pushed for the public access station to be included in the community center design. The cost estimates for the studio came in between $620,000 and $1.1 million, and rent could be as expensive as $84,000 per year. Concord TV does not pay rent at the current location, and told the city it could not afford to pay rent or cover construction costs on a future studio in that space.
So in a Feb. 22 letter to the city, Executive Director Doris Ballard said the nonprofit would vacate its studio at the existing community center. She noted the recommended plan for the community center “does not currently include the presence of Concord TV’s training facility and studio.”
“Although disappointed, we do understand and respect that the new community center plans are mindful of minimizing financial impact on taxpayers,” Ballard wrote. So the board had decided “that Concord TV would reduce its physical presence at the Heights Community Center from the capacity in which we currently operate.”
Concord TV had not yet set a date to move out, she wrote. The organization’s studio and main offices at Concord High School will remain. The letter noted the Heights studio opened in 2013, and since then, more than 800 individual programs have been taped and broadcast there. Reached by phone, Ballard declined to comment beyond her letter, saying “everything is still up in the air.”
“But with change, comes opportunity,” Ballard wrote. “The Concord TV board of directors believes its mission can be best carried out with a flexible, mobile approach within Concord, while keeping requipment and staff current and up to date.”
Matt Walsh, Concord’s director of redevelopment, special projects and downtown services, said the city’s recently negotiated franchise agreement with Comcast allows for a live drop at the Heights Community Center, so Concord TV could broadcast public events and meetings from that space.
Some of the community center designs were as large as 80,000 square feet; now, the council is considering a roughly 30,000-square-foot layout.
“This is just generally a smaller proposal,” he said. “Reducing the size of the building helps with the overall cost impact of the project.”
While a branch library was also considered in earlier designs, Walsh noted that idea is excluded too. A turf field was also nixed.
“When you remove things, sometimes you’re removing revenue components as well,” Walsh said.
But the scaled-back options do include many features the community wanted – a gymnasium, multipurpose rooms for seniors or exercise groups and a function hall. City officials have recommended an option that would keep a 1965 wing of the existing Dame School, but demolish and build new for the rest. The councilors had asked about some add-ons, including a walking track in the gymnasium. According to Walsh’s report, that feature could cost as much as $788,000 extra.
Walsh said months of public hearings about the design last year were “valuable.”
“It at least gave us an indication of what the city council felt was important for programmatic offerings, what they’re willing to afford,” Walsh said.
If the council does make a decision this month, city staff would finish the design and bid the job in September. Construction would take about a year, so the new community center would open in 2017.
The council will meet April 11 at 7 p.m. To read the agenda and the Heights Community Center report, visit concordnh.gov.
(Megan Doyle can be reached at 369-3321, mdoyle@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @megan_e_doyle.)