Redmond Council Backs Community Center Recommendations

From the City of Redmond: At last night’s meeting, Council adopted a resolution that confirms their support of the Community Priorities for the Future of Redmond’s Community Centers Report. This report includes recommendations gathered from six months of community engagement and proposes values and strategies for developing a long-term plan for City Parks and Recreation facilities.

The team leading the outreach project received input from 3,600 community members. Based on the feedback, a stakeholder group helped develop recommendations on how the City should move forward in planning future community centers. These recommendations were presented to City Council on April 11, 2017. Mayor John Marchione confirmed that “this was one of the largest and most effective public engagement initiatives in the City’s history and Council is supporting the direction that the community has provided.”
The highlights of the outlined recommendations are as follows:

• Urgency: Within five years, provide community centers(s) to meet Redmond's most urgent needs
• Spaces: Meet Redmond's needs for priority spaces, including:

- Aquatics and fitness
- Flexible spaces for cultural arts and events
- Flexible community spaces for meetings, classes, and gatherings

• Partnerships: Explore a variety of partnership models
• Location: Locate future community center(s) in Downtown and Marymoor Village
• Funding: Develop a funding package that leverages funding from a variety of sources
• Community Engagement: Continue strong communications about progress and engage the community in interim decisions throughout the process

Over the next 24 months, the City will work with the Stakeholder Group and community to meet the short-term goals outlined in the plan. These goals include refining the types of spaces needed, prioritizing location(s) of various programs, developing concept designs and cost estimating for renovations, additions or new construction, identifying partners, and defining a financing plan.

For more information about this project or to review the report, please visit www.redmondscommunitycenters.com. If you are interested in participating in the stakeholder group, please contact Carolyn Hope at cjhope@redmond.gov. For questions regarding this release, please contact Lisa Maher, Communications & Marketing Manager, at lmaher@redmond.gov or 425-556-2427. This press release is available on www.redmond.gov.

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