- November 4, 2024
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Palm Coast's government has fielded repeated calls from some residents to build a senior center and requests from others to build a recreation center for young people. It's now considering combining the two ideas. At this point, according to a presentation during a July 10 City Council workshop, the proposal is for a "multigenerational activities center" that city staff are also referring to as a satellite recreation or community center.
Palm Coast has a Community Center at the intersection of Palm Coast Parkway Northeast and Colbert Lane, and the proposed new center would be built on city-owned land near the Lehigh Trailhead at Belle Terre Parkway and Royal Palms Parkway and serve residents who live further south and west.
City staff sought bids for the center's design and got eight proposals, invited three in for interviews, and then chose Lose Design for the work and negotiated a scope and fee for services in the amount of $99,500, according to the presentation.
Lose Design would "focus on all community, recreation, fitness, and sports programming for the facility," according to a Lose Design proposal submitted to the city. "This will include many areas outside of sports, such as: health/wellness, education, arts, music, life skills, community events and more. ... The report generated for Palm Coast will determine the highest and best use of space for programming and amenities. This will be determined by the overall vision, findings of the project, market analysis, and outcome of the financial analysis."
The council will vote on the contract at an upcoming meeting July 17.
If the council votes in favor, the project would then return to the council repeatedly through the end of the year, with the design firm providing a site master plan, preliminary design, a financial feasibility analysis and a project budget and schedule.
The city would send out public surveys in August to see what community members want to see in the proposed recreation center.
A draft proposal would be presented to the council and then refined, said Carl Cote, the city's construction manager.
The master plan would be finalized in December, he said.
City Councilwoman Heidi Shipley asked whether the proposed center really needs to be approximately 100,000 square feet, as proposed, or whether that would push the cost too high.
City Manager Jim Landon said the design process would help the city narrow down what it wants.
As to cost, he said, "We're estimating in the tens of millions for these kinds of facilities."
The benefits of placing the proposed center near the intersection of Belle Terre Parkway and Royal Parks Parkway, Landon said, are that there's already a trailhead and tennis center there, the city owns the land, and the city could have the rec center and the trailhead share a parking lot.
