Joliet park board makes plans again for East Side rec center

JOLIET – The Joliet Park District is moving ahead again with plans for an indoor recreation center in Nowell Park.

The park board Monday gave its OK to a revised plan for the project and agreed to an add-on to its contract with Dewberry Architects for the redesign.

The new plan includes a smaller fitness center. One of the three originally proposed basketball courts has been removed. An indoor walking trail has been added. A preschool room has been added, too.

Park District Executive Director Tom Carstens said he will meet with community groups in the coming weeks to discuss the plan, but thought it would be well received.

"It functions a lot better from our end, from a resident's standpoint, and from an operational standpoint," Carstens told the board.

He said there is room for changes.

An alternative design would put back the third basketball court if bids come in low. And, while the fitness center is now 2,500 square feet, instead of the 4,000 to 5,000 square feet in the original plan, it is adjacent to multipurpose rooms that can be converted to fitness space if there is demand for it, Carstens told the board.

He said if the plan moves ahead as is construction should start by late summer.

An East Side indoor recreational center was part of the projects promised in a $19.5 million bond referendum approved in November 2014.

But delays in the project have made it an issue in the April 4 election for park board. At one time, park officials said construction could start in the fall of 2015.

But that was before Carstens was hired as executive director.

Carstens said due diligence in the preparatory work was not done, and it was only earlier this month that the park district got the necessary reports back from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure that the center was not built in a floodplain.

Also, he said, it was only in February that the Illinois Department of Transportation gave its consent to the design for entrance and exit to the center in light of future plans to redesign nearby Route 53.

"The last thing we want to do is build something that we're going to regret down the road," Carstens said.

Park Commissioner Brett Gould, however, said he was concerned about the roads that surround Nowell Park.

"Those roads are an embarrassment," Gould said, noting potholes and the absence of sidewalks. "We're going to revitalize the park, and if the city and state don't do anything about the roads or the sidewalks for kids to walk on ..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but Carstens said while the actual work may be years away, the state is "committed to doing the Route 53 improvements."

Commissioner Tim Broderick commended the latest version of the recreation center, saying, “This is a long-range plan. This building is going to be there many, many years.”