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Residents Glimpse Pioneer Park Plan

Posted on: Thursday, 21 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

For the most part, they liked the high-school-size gym and elevated walking track. They saw few problems with the arts and crafts room or the room dedicated to aerobics and dance.

But the roughly 100 residents who turned out this week for a public meeting on the planned reconstruction of the Pioneer Park Community Center did have something to say about a few of the external amenities.

The elimination of two tennis courts was a concern. The repositioning of those courts -putting them nearer Fernandez Avenue - was a worry. Some weren't convinced all the planned parking was really necessary - more green space would be nice, they pointed out - and others weren't sure a suggested extra park entry at Fernandez Avenue and Park Street would be good for traffic.

"They came up with some great ideas," park board head Maryfran Leno said, "so I think, for the most part, everyone was very positive. We're still in the preliminary stages. It was just a concept with some ideas."

The next step: heading back to the drawing board to see what can be changed to address some of those concerns. A revised plan will be brought back to the public for review.

A recent survey suggested Arlington Heights residents want their community centers rebuilt and updated. Pioneer's 48-year-old building - second in age only to the one at Recreation Park - is slated to be the first of five redone over a period of years.

It was chosen in large part because of the thousands of dollars in repairs officials say it already faces to address a bad roof and accessibility issues.

Pioneer Park, on the village's southwest side, boasts a swimming pool, ball diamonds, an ice rink and tennis courts.

The tentative plan reviewed by residents calls for keeping all that - though it also suggests eliminating two tennis courts in an effort to accommodate everything, like more parking - and creating a new center that's nearly double the square footage of the current one and packed with modern amenities.

Among the proposals now:

- A regulation gym. Now, the center houses only a small gym that began as a meeting room.

- An indoor walking track, elevated above the gymnasium.

- A dance/aerobics room and a room set aside for crafts.

- A preschool room. That's already on-site now but is housed in a separate building.

- Two multipurpose rooms and a meeting room that could be rented out by the public.

- A new entrance that would allow traffic to flow through the park from Grove Street to Fernandez Avenue. That caused worries from residents near the proposed entry, at Park Street and Fernandez, who wondered whether it was a good idea.

- Additional parking.

The proposed center would take up about 25,540 square feet of green space - up from the roughly 18,000-square-foot footprint occupied by the current park center and a service garage that will be torn down.

Park officials are proposing funding the project's estimated $6 million to $7 million price tag by selling bonds.

Park officials still are banking on having plans finalized by fall, allowing them to go out for bids in the winter and get going on construction next spring.

More than 27,000 people used Pioneer Park for various programs and on a walk-in basis, according to the most recent annual report available. Another nearly 40,000 were counted at the swimming pool.

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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