On Tuesday, January 12, an open house will be held at the Legion building for the community to discuss planning and needs for a Community Center and City Hall. Interested parties can attend anytime between 5:30-7:00 p.m. to receive information.
As a mask resolution is in effect in Garretson, masks are requested for attendees.
On Monday, January 4, Josh Muckenhirn with ISG Architects and Chad Hanisch with Infrastructure Design Group presented their initial community responses, site options, and concepts to the city council.
A survey was taken on-line by community members at the end of October, with approximately 200 responses.
ISG compiled those results, finding that an overwhelming majority of respondents were in favor of both a community center and a new city hall. Nearly 90% thought it would be a positive addition to the community, with 53% strongly in favor, 32.4% in favor, and 11% not in favor.
Nearly half (45%) of the respondents were age 35-54, and more than half (55%) had children in the house. Half (50%) of the respondents were involved with organizations, groups, or classes within the community, and 45% had a desire or need to utilize a new community center.
Most respondents (68.3%) felt a large open space would be most useful to the community, followed by seating (58.3%), a performance space (43.3%), technology capabilities (40%), small breakout rooms (26.7%), and offices (3.3%). Suggestions for the project consisted of a larger exercise space, space for after school activities, and providing public restrooms.
Several survey responses wanted the city to ensure factors such as location, cost for rental, effects on the current debt load and tax impacts on the community, and long-term usefulness to the community were taken into account.
With that in mind, ISG and Infrastructure Design Group created three options for the facility, which consisted of a City Hall, Community Center, and Event Space.
The City Hall could contain offices, a conference room, a new council chamber, and a new garage for City-owned vehicles. The Community Center could contain a community room, fitness space, and therapy pool. The Event Space could contain an event hall and meeting room area that could be combined into a larger space, along with a performance stage. All told, a facility that contained all the above options could be approximately 24,250 square feet.
Smaller options could include a fitness center attached to City Hall, with a separate Event Space that only included a large event hall and stage, or an option that eliminated the fitness center and stage entirely. The third option allowed for City Hall to be re-built on the same site as it is on currently.
They then identified five locations that could be possible for these options. Four are owned by the City, and one is owned by a private party. The options included west of Split Rock Creek south of 5th Street, east of Split Rock by the railroad property, north of the maintenance sheds off 5th Street, the current City Hall site (which would require a second site for the events center), and the corner of Dows and Center (which would require a second site for City Hall).
These options, and more information, will be presented at next week's meeting. Due to the open house format, livestreaming is not an option. However, the Gazette will endeavor to present any further information as it comes available.
A full scanned PDF of the survey results, concepts, and sites is below. (To see a single page at one time, select the gear icon below and choose "Single Page.")
UPDATE 1/13/21: View the full presentation given on Tuesday, January 12 on our Facebook Page.
