Silverdale Community Campus Master Planning Continues
Friday, April 10th, 2009Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
Warning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
On Thursday evening, I attended a meeting of a committee of the Central Kitsap Community Council. It wasn’t a particularly newsy agenda, but it was good to meet a few members of the council committee and to hear what they were saying about the ongoing development of the community campus master plan.
On January 2 this year, Sun reporter Brynn Grimley contributed the following to a wrap up report on items the staff expected to make news during 2009:
Progress Hoped for on Campus
Progress is expected this year on the proposed Central Kitsap Community Campus, a longtime dream of Silverdale residents that could move a step closer to reality.
In their last meeting of 2008, Kitsap County commissioners reached two agreements about the site of the campus, which would be located on a 12-acre plot off Randall Way.
One of the agreements was with Tacoma architectural firm BRCA Inc., which will complete architectural and engineering services for the project. BRCA will be paid $96,000 to figure out how the various possible components of the project — which could include a new library, YMCA, senior apartments, performing arts center and more — will fit together. Conceptual drawings could be ready as soon as February.
The commissioners also reached a preliminary agreement with the YMCA of Tacoma-Pierce County for construction and operation of a recreation facility at the campus. The county is pursuing grants to pay for the YMCA, which could cost $15 million. The county’s share would be $5 million; existing grants already have covered $1.8 million.
Also expected in 2009 is the county’s Silverdale incorporation study, which will analyze the impact cityhood could have on county revenues and services.
Brynn Grimley
According to the discussion Thursday, development of the master plan by BRCA continues, and there may be a public announcement of a specific plan for the community campus area sometime this spring. While past master plans were more conceptual, committee members said last night that the current version is much more specific to the site, dealing with wetlands where they exist and how wetland mitigation will take place. While not every building on the site might be identified for its eventual purpose, it sounds like this plan will include specific building sites and identify for each site the size of the building and what kinds of features it may contain.
While this particular phase of the development of the plan hasn’t been open to the public, this has been a very public discussion over a long period of time. There has been much public comment about what kinds of services should be featured in the community campus. Unless there are serious fundraising snags, the first building on the campus site will be the proposed YMCA. Committee members last night were saying the intention is still to try to break ground on the YMCA facility by the spring of 2010. The tentative budget for the Y is about $15 million, with $5 million coming from government grants, $5 million from bonds sold by the YMCA, and $5 million raised from public fundraising. If the project actually will begin in about a year, expect to see a major public fundraising push begin soon.
Of course, there are other components of the community campus.
The campus is seen as the location for the new Silverdale branch of Kitsap Regional Library. (Disclosure: I am an employee of KRL.) KRL has nine branch libraries. It only owns two of the buildings where those branches are located, the Sylvan Way main branch and the Silverdale library building on Carlton Street. Three of its nine branches are city owned (downtown Bremerton, Port Orchard and Poulsbo); one is in a county building (Kingston); one is owned by the S’Klallam Tribe (Little Boston) and two are owned by independent charitable groups (Manchester, Bainbridge Island). To pay for a new branch, KRL would probably have to sell its existing building and still come up with additional funds. So it’s unclear how soon a library could be under construction at the Silverdale community campus site.
Also mentioned in past years for the site have been senior housing that was to be built by Kitsap Consolidated Housing Authority. But the KCHA has been so damaged by the impact of the economy on its waterfront condo development in Bremerton that its not in any position to begin work on something at the Silverdale campus.
And there was at one time talk of a performing arts center at the site — something I assume that could be the new home of CSTOCK as well as a venue for live music and dance— and possibly a teen center.
Whatever is next, I hope that the people who are involved in the planning are looking for ways that various tenants of the campus site can share facilities. It would seem to make sense that every institution or organization that becomes a tenant on the campus should somehow form partnerships with each other to maximize the use of the facility and minimize the need to duplicate building spaces that they could share.
Here are some links to past stories in the Kitsap Sun about the Silverdale community campus:
This story focuses on prospects for the Y.
This July 2007 story talks about the community council’s frustration with lack of progress on the campus project and the impact that the failed 2007 library levy had on plans for the library being the “anchor tenant” of the campus. This was before the Y emerged as a possible tenant at the campus site.
This February 2007 story was about the public getting its first chance to comment on the conceptual design plan.
Please feel free to comment on whether you think the Silverdale community campus is a good idea, what you think it might contribute to the community, and what should be part of the campus.
— Jeff
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Recent Comments