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Nick Streit offers gym idea to Parks Commission
By Kara Chalmers
One issue that city officials seem to agree on is that sooner or later, the city will have to answer to its growing youth population and provide another indoor area for sports. Director of Recreation Joan Pisani has made it clear that the youth basketball league in Saratoga is sorely in need of space to play. The only questionable issue is where.
On Feb. 7, Councilman Nick Streit suggested that one answer is the Heritage Orchard, located next to Fruitvale and Saratoga avenues. He suggested to Parks and Recreation commissioners that they look into all possible areas for indoor gyms in the city. According to Streit, since the Jan.10 commission meeting, when Nemat Maleksalehi proposed to build and fund an indoor gym for the city, residents have contacted him and the huge issue of sports areas in Saratoga has come to the forefront again. Maleksalehi did not attend the commission meeting Feb. 7 to present a revised plan for his gym although he was on the agenda.
Streit's proposal, which drew some members of the Heritage Preservation Commission to the meeting, is for an old barn that is big enough to hold two basketball courts or two volleyball courts, to be built in the orchard. It would be connected to the library by a foot path and to city buildings by a foot path and a bridge over the creek. A heritage museum, where people could learn in a hands-on way about orchards and orchard equipment, could be constructed beside the barn or nearby. That way the orchard could be turned into a working or teaching orchard.
"I don't think the city has done enough for our kids," Streit said. "We've fallen short over the years, and I think now is the time to put a multipurpose building in here, but also a museum."
Streit estimates the whole project would take up only about one half or three fourths of an acre, leaving most of the orchard intact. All parking would be near city hall, where the community center, post office and Redwood Middle School and West Valley College are located, and which all have parking available on nights and weekends when the main time the gym would be used.
The barn could have the same color palette as the Saratoga Community Library on the corner of Saratoga and Fruitvale avenues and the same low roof design, so that it would not be too visible from the street.
Another possibility would be to use the corporate yard for a gym site, but then the commission would have to find a place to store vehicles and the equipment.
A subcommittee of the commission, made up of Nick Seroff, Norbert Fronczak, Judy Alberts and Elaine Clabeaux, was formed to look into all ideas. Streit said he has not run his idea by the council, but that he was giving it to the commission to do with as they wish.
The Heritage Orchard has been suggested before as a place to house playfields. According to Streit, there is support in the community for using part of the orchard for a multipurpose building.
"The basketball need isn't going to go away," Streit said. "The neighborhoods are changing, we're getting more and more kids into this town, and we're not taking care of them. We don't have the gymnasium space. So whether it's on my term on the next council, something's going to happen ... if we don't start looking at it now, it's going to happen down the road when we don't have any control over it."
Streit suggested that as part of the deal the commission could recommend an ordinance that states that no more of the Orchard could ever be used, or could recommend putting the issue to a vote.
"I don't want to see the orchard go away," he said. "But I also want to use a little corner of it to see if we can take care of our kids." But Robert Peepari, of the Heritage Commission, who attended the meeting, said that he would be strongly opposed to building any structure on the Heritage Orchard.
"If we start taking off a little piece now, later on someone else is going to come along and take off another piece and eventually down the line I can see that orchard being quite small," he said. It is a Heritage Orchard, he said, and as a landmark, it's meant to be preserved. "Because that's meant to be for the future," he said. "For people here in the future so that they can see what Saratoga was like and what the orchard was like."
Peepari did say that the expansion of the Saratoga Community Library is inevitable and that the library's design is excellent and fits in with the orchard and Saratoga. Commissioner Nick Seroff asked at the meeting why the Heritage Commission is not then opposed to the library expansion, since a portion of the orchard will be impacted by the library's expansion or possible new parking lot, he said.
In November, the City Council decided to place a $15 million bond measure on the March 7 ballot to renovate and expand the Saratoga Community Library. The new facility is estimated to be between 46,000-49,000 square feet, according to the Library Commission's 1999 Needs Assessment report. The current facility is 18,000 square feet.
Library commissioners had initially recommended a $14 million bond measure, but were ecstatic when the council voted on an even larger amount. Streit, who was the council member who moved to vote for a $15 million bond rather than $14 million, said the extra million would ensure that the new library would have a minimal impact on the orchard.
It is impossible to know what the new library will look like, where it will expand and where patrons will park, since no designs will be planned unless the bond passes.
Streit said that constructing a path to the city hall and the Community Center area for parking, so that there wouldn't be a need to construct a parking lot for the new library, then would be a good idea.
Part of the reason Streit said he brought his idea up to the Parks Commission is because the council will soon have to decide whether the community center will be renovated or completely replaced. And an idea like Streit's would need to be taken into account when making that decision since it may affect the cost or design of the community center.
"I think this is excellent," Clabeaux said of Streit's proposal.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
