Study: Improvement to Community Center Would Cost $500K—at a Minimum

The tally is in: Any way you slice it, improvements to the Shakopee Community Center will cost a nice chunk of change.

So said the authors of a feasibility report, who debuted their findings at the Park and Recreation Advisory Board on Monday. The study, conducted by the architectural firm HGA, provided new costs estimates for a familiar plan to improve and expand the city-owned center, which currently includes a fitness area, indoor walking track, gymnasium, ice arena and the teen club Enigma.

The center was the subject of a failed $8 million bond referendum in 2010. If approved, the city would have used the money to add a second ice sheet, expand the fitness area and add a senior center. 

The Park and Rec Board revived the project in January, when they asked the city council to consider using a $150,000 intergovernmental grant to build team rooms and a hockey dryland facility at the center. The council demurred until new costs estimates could be calculated for each piece of the older proposal.

HGA's Victor Pechaty broke the 2010 project into four distinct parts:

• Addition of team rooms and a hockey dryland facility on the southern end of the ice arena: If this option was chosen, the structures would be constructed with further expansion in mind. The city hopes to build a second sheet of ice on the south side in the future. The single story team room addition would cost $2.1 million. A two-story addition would cost $4.2 million.

• Addition of a second floor to the fitness area: If built, the second floor would allow runners and elliptical enthusiasts far more elbow room than they enjoy now. The upper level might also house a second aerobics studio, childcare area or multipurpose room. This project would cost $1 million.

• Remodeling the teen club to make it double as a senior center: It would be no small task to convert the club into multigenerational facility that pleases both teens and the 65-plus set. Jamie Polley, the Parks, Recreation & Natural Resources Director, said that the transformation would require a complete renovation, with all new furniture and decor, but that the mock ups she'd seen so far were promising.

"It's not a cheap change to the facility, but there is a way we can get both to use it and feel it's their home. It would have more of a coffee shop feel, cozy and warm but hip and modern at the same time," Polley told the board. 

The price was higher than she expected, however, about $500,000 (of which about $145,000 would go toward furnishings).

• A new dryland hockey addition to the center's west side, onto the front of the current ice arena: This option would forgo the team rooms present in option one. It would cost an estimated $1 million, with $170,000 to equip the facility.

Given the rather costly nature of the estimates, Polley told the board that they may want to consider using the grant money in some other way. If any of these improvements were to occur, the city would have to seek out other funding sources, either in its own budget or through the largesse of private partners and sponsor, she said. Polley said that Mayor Brad Tabke had already begun some preliminary discussions with outside parties.