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Indoor
Recreation Facilities
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INDOOR RECREATION FACILITIES
Ellen McPherson
w 865-5880
My, how things are changing! The lecture sponsored by the Recreation and
Open Space Task Force entitled “Indoor Recreation Facilities in the Next
Decade” showed how much public recreation facilities have changed over time and
the impact they can have on a community.
Ken Ballard, a recreation facility planning and operation consultant,
explained how indoor recreation centers have changed from small, dark,
antiquated buildings to large, bright, modern community centers. All around the country, and in Maine,
communities are building indoor recreation centers that house diverse programs
from swimming pools, therapy pools, fitness areas to climbing walls, indoor
tracks, ice rinks, indoor playgrounds and multipurpose courts. Other new design trends include leisure
pools, art rooms, teen centers, intergenerational facilities and multifaceted
game rooms. The newer leisure pools
differ significantly from the traditional box style competitive swim facilities
of the past. They include shallow entry areas; fun slides and water play
features for children. The design of community centers today includes the
traditional gymnasium space for indoor sports as well as a myriad of other activity
areas not commonly associated with recreation centers of the past. The options
are endless.
However, the talk also emphasized
that it should be a community center. Therefore, it must be the community that
determines the priorities and the needs for the center. Ballard indicated that
it is important to do a needs assessment and feasibility analysis, including
gaining an understanding of activities that already exist in the
community. And, most importantly, the
community must be involved at every step in the process to determine what the
community wants and what structure will work best.
The talk also focused on how
community centers are now filling the need of a much larger group of people
including preschoolers, teens, families and seniors. The facilities are designed to be flexible to adapt to different
types of programming to meet the overall community’s needs. In addition, the building, whether of new
construction or a renovation of an existing building, is designed to fit within
the culture of the community and planned to be sustainable. The goal is for the building to be an
integral part of the community.
As a member of both the Open Space
and Recreation Task Force and the Brunswick Recreation Commission, I have
learned that during the past decade alone there have been three separate local
independent initiatives to establish an indoor ice arena, soccer facility and
swimming pool in our community. The High School Reuse Committee report of 1995
also recommended that a new community pool be considered as part of the
renovation and redevelopment plans for the property located at Spring and
McKeen Streets. The current recreation
center located on Federal Street was built in the early 1940's and has served
the town well for many years. However, it cannot support the additional
programming demands that will occur as the Town grows in the years ahead.
Currently the Parks and Recreation
Department works collaboratively with the Brunswick School Department in
scheduling indoor gymnasium space to support a wide variety of school
activities and recreation programs annually.
During the winter months, gymnasium space is in high demand and is
currently inadequate to accommodate all the requests that the Parks and
Recreation Department receives for the use of such space. During the past
decade, there has been significant growth of recreation programming in
Brunswick. It is anticipated that this trend will continue as citizens seek
more of the types of services that require the availability of additional
indoor space.
As we contemplate the best course of
action in planning for the development of new indoor recreation facilities for
Brunswick, a feasible method of financing the initial capital and the ongoing
operational costs of such a facility must remain at the forefront of our
thinking. One of the reassuring components of Ballard's presentation was that
many more options exist today for funding indoor recreation centers. In the old model, the Town, through tax
dollars and/or fundraising, was primarily responsible for funding the
project. Today, many more options
exist, including partnerships with both the private sector and other
quasi-public agencies or organizations.
For many years the Town of Brunswick
has been fortunate to have a very active indoor recreation center that has
served the leisure needs of several generations of its citizens. In order to best plan for the future indoor
recreational needs of our community, we will need to expand our thinking
regarding the future programming possibilities and study current trends. Most importantly though, we must solicit
input from all levels of the community and potential users in order to design
and develop the type of facilities that will best address the needs and desires
of the citizens of Brunswick.
