Help Shape the South Tacoma Community Center and Campus
As many of you are becoming aware, South Tacoma is about to undergo a lot of change as several big projects start coming online. One of those big projects is the South Tacoma Community Center and Campus. Do you want to help shape the project?
The South Tacoma Community Center will be at the site of the new Gray Middle School, SERA sports field complex and soon to be constructed Boys & Girls Club Topping Hope Center.
During a public meeting in January community members provided thoughts about the types of facilities that should be included in the plan. Working since that time with a project steering committee and a team of architects and landscape architects, Metro Parks has assembled concepts for the campus and center.
Join Metro Parks Tacoma, along with representatives from the Tacoma Public Schools and the Boys and Girls Clubs for an overview presentation of plans for the new Community Center and park improvements. Learn about current efforts, and take this opportunity to add your thoughts and ideas to those that are already under consideration.
click to enlarge
If you have opinions, let yourself be heard!
Details
March 10th, 2009 from 6:30 to 8pm
Gray Middle School
6229 S. Tyler Street
Commons Room
8 comments
F Frizzlebee March 2, 2009
This seems to be almost like Federal Way’s Celebration Park, but with the addition of a new Middle School. (Can we afford a new Middle School?) Having a sports-centered park hasn’t seemed to be a problem with our neighbors to the north—I don’t see why it would be any different for us. Hopefully the fields would be open to the general public, little leagues, etc.
I see baseball and soccer fields. Why are there no curling facilities?
B Bob March 3, 2009
As with other public projects around town, the lack of programming and maintenance seems to be an issue.
The Old Town Dock remains closed (due to neglect). The pool at the Hilltop community center was shut down (due to neglect). And then there’s Tollefson Plaza.
Shouldn’t we fix our current problems before creating new ones?
T Thorax O'Tool March 3, 2009
SERA has been there for years, and hardly anyone knows it’s there.
I’m all for making it more of a force to be reckoned with… but dammit, we really do need to take care of our existing infrastructure before we make more.
K Ken March 3, 2009
Derek, Thanks for posting the invitation, it’d be great to have some exit133ers offer their thoughts to the project. Also, thanks for the responses to this post. Let me respond with a couple of thoughts.
Re: too many middle schools. Gray is finished and kids have been in class there since January. It is a great looking school and very needed.
Re: fixing problems before creating new ones. The dock and the plaza have nothing to do with Metro Parks, Tacoma Schools District and Boys and Girls Club. I don’t see the connection. The pool at the Hilltop community center is worth noting as is Titlow. I think it is fair to hold metro parks feet to the fire to continuet to find ways to maintain what it has, however, to think that should preclude further developments seems to be a bit of a reach to me.
Re: SERA’s obscurity. Yes, unless you play softball you don’t know about SERA. That being said, it is well maintained and a great asset to metro parks. This plan will only make it better and invite more folks to awaken to its presence.
As a resident, I am very excited about this project. SoTac has very few gathering spaces and short of the business district, no core. I believe this site can become a central gathering space, but it needs more community support.
The one tension I have with this site is between it being program oriented versus open gathering space oriented. Program is more like the YMCA. You come for a program and leave. Any community created with neighbors is incidental. Open gathering space is more like a park or restaraunt. Anyone can come without paying and you can run into other folks from the community. This site is currently set up to be both, but I worry that it will start to lean more towards program oriented as Metro Parks examines the budget. To avoid this, we need more neighbors to advocate for the ‘open gathering space’ side. I think this fits with place-making bias of exit133er’s.
I wont’t be at the public meeting, but i look forward to hearing that it was well attended.
D David Boe March 4, 2009
With the City of Tacoma working so hard to create urban mixed-use centers, why is this preliminary site plan for the community center laid out like another sub-urban development with buildings setback from the street? South Tacoma does not need to look like Federal Way (heck, now even Federal Way doesn’t want to look like Federal Way). It is possible to get an urban solution to go with the Sound Transit Sounder Station to the East?
T Thorax O'Tool March 4, 2009
MPT gets nearly all their income from property taxes. Taking on large capital projects in this climate seems fool-hardy.
And Dave Boe… exactly right. We don’t need any additional suburban type development going on. I swear that kind of planning should be illegal.
If MPT is hell-bent on spending the $$$, then they really ought to do something the helps SoTac, not hurt it.
D DavidS March 5, 2009
hmm… +/- 800 parking stalls mostly for use only on evening and weekends. At least the parking around Heidelberg Fields gets used by the high school during the day. Too bad there’s not a way to share the use of this parking with something that needs it – like maybe a commuter rail station?
That said, let’s think a little more about the edges & connections rather than treating this as an isolated project that cars will drive to.
K Ken March 5, 2009
The comments about suburban complex are well noted and I would greatly appreciate if a few folks would come to the March 10th meeting and express these concerns. Seriously, it might not change things at this point, but hey who knows. Bring it.
Re: MPT being overextended. While this is possible, the funds for this complex were specifically allocated from the 60 million dollar grant MPT received 2 years ago. It must go to this, so let’s try to make ‘this’ the best ‘this’ that it can be.
Come to the meeting.