Putting Mercer Island club on map
The Seattle Times
June 3, 2006 Saturday
Fourth Edition
Youth group - ‘07 groundbreaking planned for state-of-art building
Kayla Webley
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
At 91 years old, the Mercer Island’s Boys and Girls Club’s current site shows its age.
There are cracks in the walls and electrical tape holding wiring together in the building where kids run, learn and play after school.
Club director Todd Bale jokes that the walls in the adjacent bus barn now used for storage aren’t made of wood anymore they are just “termites holding hands.”
“Love and duct tape is all that holds us together that’s kind of our joke,” Bale said.
The aging facility, the former East Seattle School, is why the club is campaigning hard for a new building. It already has a new site on the Mercer Island High School campus and has raised $8 million, half of its fundraising goal.
With some earlier roadblocks now resolved, the club is pursuing private donors so it can stay on track for a groundbreaking in fall 2007.
The club must reach 90 percent of the fundraising goal, or about $14.4 million, before breaking ground, Bale said.
“This is the largest public-private partnership for kids in the history of Mercer Island,” Bale said. “The community not only has to support this, but sacrifice to make this project a reality.”
The planned $16 million state-of-the-art building would put the Mercer Island club on the map as one of the best in the nation, Bale said.
The approximately 50,000-square-foot, three-story building would sit on the “North Mercer” area of the Mercer Island High School campus, located at 9100 S.E. 42nd St. The building is divided into three areas: a 19,000-square-foot field house, a teen center and club space for kids.
The “EX3″ Teen Center would offer a music and video production studio, an Internet Café, learning lounge with tutoring and a teens-only games room.
The field house, the size of three full-sized basketball courts, would be equipped for badminton, baseball, basketball, dodge ball, gymnastics, lacrosse, soccer, track, volleyball and wrestling.
The field house also would include a weight room and cardio area, a top request heard from teens when they were surveyed nine months ago, Bale said.
A separate learning center, computer lab, arts and craft room and games areas would be designed for kindergarten through eighth-grade students. The facility would offer before- and after-school child care.
With the proximity to the high school, the Boys and Girls Club hopes to increase the number of teens who use the facility, Bale said. Of the 2,000 members, the majority 75 percent are in kindergarten through eighth grade.
The new center would free up space in the overcrowded high school, which plans to add four or five new classrooms when wrestling and gymnastics move to the new facility.
The project has raised concern from neighboring residents over potential traffic and parking problems.
A few weeks ago the City Council adopted a transportation improvement plan, which included modifications to deal with congestion along Southeast 40th Street, scheduled to begin in 2007, said Mercer Island City Manager Rich Conrad.
The parking issue has not been resolved, but the club is working with the school district and city to devise a plan, Bale said.
Called the PEAK project (a Positive Place for Kids and Teens for Enrichment, Education, Activities, Athletics, Kinship and Community), the new club would be built with public and private support, Bale said.
The largest chunk of the money raised so far came from resident Michael O’Brien, who signed a letter of intent to purchase the existing site’s property for $6 million. Under the agreement the property will be leased back to the Boys and Girls Club for $10 per year for 10 years.
From the sale, $4.5 million will go toward the new facility, with the remaining $1.5 million going to the King County Boys and Girls Club capital reserve fund.
O’Brien also agreed to improve the current site, tearing down the old half of the building, keeping the gymnasium (built in 1991) and adding a Little League field, improved T-ball field and outdoor play area for $2 million. The additions at the existing site would be used primarily by sports teams, helping to reduce overcrowding at other play fields, Bale said.
In addition to the O’Brien funds, the club has raised $2.5 million in private donations and received $1 million contributions from the city and the school district, respectively.
Fundraising ideally should take no more than a year, Bale said. The club has been seeking money for the past two months and is approaching larger donors.
Celeste on November 10th, 2008
Good post.