Council, community groups settle on civic center plan

By Oakley Brooks

Members of the city council and local community groups recently settled on a broad plan for a revamped civic center.

The remodeled Allendale Avenue facility will include more intimate city council chambers, a modernized civic theater, a larger community and senior center, and a greatly expanded gymnasium and multipurpose building that will include a teen center.

To enhance traffic flow and parking on the site, the city also plans to build a bi-level parking garage and include a drive-through route between Fruitvale and Allendale avenues.

New Mayor Nick Streit said he'd like to put a more detailed plan before voters in the next six months.

City officials and consultants have not provided a solid estimate of the costs of the new civic center, but Architect Chris Noll, of Berkeley firm Noll & Tam, said the remodeling work would start at some $25 million.

The agreement on Dec. 11 among user groups and the council caps two years of study sessions to develop the final master plan. The city can now work to refine that plan through a series of citywide public hearings.

The proposed city council chambers would sit at the edge of the current city hall building, close to the Allendale-Fruitvale corner. Council members pushed for smaller and more visible chambers, thinking that would make council meetings more accessible and attractive to the public.

Seniors groups agreed to the placement of their proposed 28,000-square-foot facility on the site of their existing building, after waffling on whether or not they wanted to move out of their current facility, just west of city hall, during reconstruction. One earlier plan would have put the new senior center further down Allendale Avenue and allowed operations to move seamlessly from the old to the new building.

But Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council Executive Director Sean O'Leary said he and the senior council board favored the site closest to city hall over one further back on Allendale Avenue. And O'Leary agreed to move into temporary buildings during construction.

"We want to be in the center of things, for visibility and parking reasons," said O'Leary.

That decision left the westernmost portion of the civic center lot for a gymnasium and teen center. Teen Commission leader Abhik Pramanik rallied for the construction of the multipurpose recreational building Dec. 11.

"The current teen center at the Warner Hutton House is a good place to hang out, but it's packed in the afternoon, and we don't even have room for backpacks," said Pramanik. "We badly need a gym in Saratoga as well."

The two main theater user-groups--the Saratoga Drama Group and the West Valley Light Opera--applauded the addition of dressing rooms and a loading dock to the aging auditorium.

After the master plan was decided on, council members launched into a short debate about how the project should be funded.

Councilman John Mehaffey favored a parcel tax that would allow the city to pay for--and build--the new facilities in steady increments. Mehaffey said the parcel tax would save taxpayers the 30 to 40 percent interest needed to pay off a long-term bond.

But Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith said she would advocate a bond, to get needed money up front and put the new buildings up more quickly.

"We have children today that could be grown and gone before this thing is built," Waltonsmith said.

The details of payment will be decided on at a later date. In the meantime, the city is soliciting public opinion on the latest master plan.

Three different drawings of the site, including the preferred alternative selected Dec. 11, can be viewed on the web at www.saratoga.ca.us/master_plan.htm.

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