More than a decade after the first study for a new Heights Community Center, the Concord City Council has finally chosen a layout.

The council on Monday night okayed a $6.5 million design for a 30,000-square-foot community center at the former Dame School on Canterbury Road, which will include a high school-sized gymnasium, three multipurpose rooms, a large function hall with a kitchen, exercise rooms and space for senior programming.

The long-awaited plan does not include a studio for Concord TV, a turf field or a walking track, which were hallmarks of previous concepts for the community center.

“It’s hard spending that kind of money, and I hope they appreciate that balance we tried to find,” Ward 8 Councilor Gail Matson said. “That’s balancing the want and the need.”

In particular, Matson pointed to the gym with a multipurpose floor. That facility can be used for basketball, pickleball, volleyball and other activities. Other rooms, she said, also allow for a wide range of uses, from library services to classes.

“There’s a lot there,” she said.

The concept of a community center near Keach Park dates to a 2004 feasibility study. In the subsequent years, Concord purchased the Dame School from the school district for $1, with the intention of renovating or rebuilding that property as a community center. The former school hosts offices and programming for the parks and recreation department, as well as a studio for Concord TV.

During the design process, however, a lengthy wish list racked up cost estimates as high as $17 million last year. The council and the community balked at that price tag, so city officials returned this year with several scaled-back scenarios, priced between $3.5 million and $9.5 million. The cheapest was to renovate the existing building; the most expensive was to build an entirely new one.

The selected design will include some parts of the building from the 1940s and 1960s. But other parts will be torn down, making way for an addition. 

The vote was 12-1, which met the two-thirds requirement for approval. Councilors Brent Todd of Ward 1 and Candace Bouchard of Ward 9 were not present.

Ward 2 Councilor Allan Herschlag was the lone vote against the community center; he had asked to delay the project for consideration during the upcoming budget process for fiscal year 2017. Only one person testified about the project; Concord resident Roy Schweiker said he didn’t like any of the options on the table.

“My feeling about this project is, it doesn’t seem that you’re getting an awful lot of your money,” Schweiker said.

About $200,000 of the $6.5 million budget will come from impact fees; the rest will be bonded. While rental fees will generate revenue, it will not be enough to offset the cost of operating the community center. Under the 2015 tax rate, the building would add $33 per year to the city’s portion of the tax bill on a home valued at $200,000.

None of the options Monday night included the nonprofit Concord TV, even though many residents had pushed for the public access station to be included in the community center design.

The cost estimates to build that 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 to use its current branch at the old Dame School, 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.

“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 that the Heights studio opened in 2013, and since then, more than 800 individual programs have been taped and broadcast there. Reached by phone last week, Ballard declined to comment beyond her letter, saying “everything is still up in the air.” She was in the audience, but did not testify about the issue at Monday’s council meeting.

Also approved Monday was a new 10-year franchise agreement between the city and Comcast. That deal includes a boost over previous levels of funding for Concord TV. (Prices and programming for Comcast customers are outside the city’s purview and were not subject to the negotiations.)

When the previous contract took effect in 2005, Comcast awarded a $350,000 grant to Concord TV. That money helped equip its studio at Concord High School, and it helped Concord TV live broadcast public meetings.

Last year, Concord TV presented Comcast and the city with a wish list adding up to $525,000. The new agreement includes that amount of money for Concord TV, in payments of $52,500 every year for the next decade.

Even though the Heights studio will not be included in the new community center, the Comcast agreement also provides for a service drop so Concord TV could broadcast live events from the building.

The city will finish design on the new community center this year and bid the job in the fall. The building will likely open in 2017.