The Auburn City Council expects to decide Monday whether to hire ARC Architects, a Seattle-based firm, to provide design and construction services for a proposed youth and community center at the north end of the Les Gove Park campus.
The meeting is 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Auburn City Hall.
Toward construction, the City has accumulated $9 million, composed of a $3 million appropriation from the state Legislature and $6 million in City funds.
As of today, the $3 million appropriation has to be committed to the project by June 30, 2015, or the state will take it back.
The youth and community center project is an alternative to the long-planned Les Gove Community Center on 12th Street. In March, council members decided not to proceed with construction bidding on the community center because the expected construction costs exceeded the maximum $9 million budget.
Today’s scaled-down alternative calls for the remodeling of the existing Parks, Arts and Recreation offices into a youth center and the development of an adjacent, two-story community center.
One of the City’s criteria for its architect is that it put together a highly qualified team of firms to represent the various specialties needed for the design and construction of the centers.
In business since 1976, ARC Architects has worked on a number of community center projects, among them the Rosehill Commnity Center in Mukilteo and the Rainier Beach Community Center and Pool in Seattle.
Preliminary plans for the teen-youth center call for:
• dedicated hang-out space for kids;
• a computer lab for homework help, SAT prep, resumé and job assistance, college and trade school applications, training and more;
• shared game space;
• a fitness room;
• office space for teen staff;
• an updating and remodeling of the kitchen to create a teaching kitchen for youth and teen programs, which would also serve the community center as a commercial kitchen option.
The community center draft calls for:
• a large, three-bay community room to accommodate events for about 300 people, addressing the demand for meeting and banquet space. Along with physical support spaces such as storage and a warming kitchen, the commercial kitchen that is already there would be available for the community center and the youth-teen center;
• a lobby lounge to be the main reception area for the community center and the youth-teen center. During private center rentals, a separate entrance would provide access to the center. This area would be designed to serve all populations for social gatherings, informal activities, people waiting for transportation and registering for classes, activities and rentals;
• an outdoor patio area into the park from the multi-purpose rooms;
• two multi-use classrooms on the second floor available for rental and accommodating up to 30 people at a time for recreation, education and enrichment classes, birthday parties and senior classes;
• office space for Parks, Arts and Rec staff on the second floor, and offices in the youth/teen center for youth and teens.
