 The draft of the community center site plan.
Without full funding yet secured to build the Northeast Community Center, Kansas City Parks and Recreation is moving forward with other aspects of the site at Ninth Street and Van Brunt Boulevard.
Project stakeholders met Friday to discuss the project. There is some funding available — including $600,000 in a previous Public Improvements Advisory Committee allocation, another $700,000 in PIAC money coming in May and $2.5 million in federal dollars from the Senate Appropriations Bill, which could be allocated in late summer.
With this incoming cash, the plan is to begin work on some of the outdoor elements of the community center, such as two soccer fields, a parking lot, an event plaza, performing stage, walking trail and basketball court.
“We want as many people going up to that site before the community center is built, getting excited,” Parks Board President John Fierro said.
One soccer field would be comprised of regular grass, and it would be considered a practice field. The game field could be comprised of artificial turf, allowing it to be used more often without turning the earth to mud. The grass field wouldn’t be ready until possibly fall 2011, as the grass has to have time to grow and take hold; but the artificial turf field could be ready by spring 2011.
The environmental investigation of the site is complete and has been sent to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The tentative timeline for project milestones moving forward includes starting construction in September after completing construction documents and putting the project out to bid over the summer.
In conjunction with planning efforts underway, a secondary group met this past week to discuss the potential economic impact of the community center in Historic Northeast. Fierro said he considered the Wednesday meeting to be the first of many. Representatives from the Police Department, City Planning and Development, the Economic Development Corporation of Greater Kansas City, Health Department and
Parks and Recreation were present. School district and Area Transportation Authority representatives were invited but absent.
“What other positive synergy could we create,” Fierro asked the group to consider. “Even the initial improvements [the soccer fields, walking trail, etc.] is going to go a long way for the neighborhood. It’s going to create hope.”
The group will consider development in a two-mile radius of the community center site. This extends to Kessler Park to the North, about to 23rd Street to the south, Interstate 435 to the east and Prospect Avenue to the west.
“If this [the community center] could be the nucleus, radiate out,” Parks Department Director Mark McHenry said, “that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”
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