Next phase: More discussion on options for community center

The next phase of community center discussions will include the creation of a committee and poll of residents to determine how to move forward.

The Longboat Key Town Commission considered a suggestion made last month by Commissioner Phill Younger to move forward with Bayfront Park’s redevelopment in two phases. But commissioners decided that they needed to gauge community opinion of a community center and determine more specifics before moving forward.

The discussion of the park’s future began with a presentation about the two-phase approach by Longboat Key Public Works Director Juan Florensa at the commission’s Thursday, April 19, regular workshop.

The first phase would involve keeping the current recreation center building while moving forward with various site improvements, such as improving recently acquired parcels to the north and south of the current park site, creation of a new internal drive with parking and relocation of two existing tennis courts to make room for a future community center. Town staff estimated the cost of improvements at $1,781,594.20.

The second phase would involve demolition of the existing building, construction of a new community center, and shifting the internal drive and parking area west at an estimated $5,394,557.34 cost.

Commissioner Jack Duncan asked what the cost would be to bring the existing recreation building up to code only to tear it down a few years later. Florensa said that the cost would be between $125,000 and $150,000.

Madelyn Spoll spoke against phasing at the workshop.

“We have Durante Park and we have Quick Point Park,” she said. “What we need is not another park but a building, and if you can’t afford to do the building or don’t want to do a building, please don’t do the grounds.”

Her husband, former Mayor George Spoll, said that delaying a building could result in missing out on today’s low construction prices.

Younger, however, worried about the impact of packaging the costs of combining the park improvements, which likely would be necessary given the acquisition of currently vacant parcels to the existing park site, with the costs of a new community center.

But Mayor Jim Brown argued that the community needs more information, saying that people, who, in the past, had opposed a community center, have expressed support for forming an inclusive committee, which could assist with the development of a community poll.

“I believe we would then have an understanding of all of the things, all of the issues that we are trying to put into this community center,” he said.

Brown said the commission wasn’t ready to make a financial decision but could still move forward through the establishment of a committee.

Vice Mayor David Brenner said that one goal of the task force should be to conduct an inventory of what activities currently take place at the recreation center and what activities take place Key-wide that could be more community-centered. In the meantime, he said that the town needs to find a way to fix the existing building and worried that its existing state could create a liability for the town.

“No matter what happens, that building’s going to be there for the next couple years, and I don’t want to be there when somebody goes falling through the stairs, and, then, we really have an obligation,” Brenner said.

The commission is tentatively scheduled to discuss appointments to the committee at its 7 p.m. Monday, May 7, regular meeting, according to a draft agenda.