Boulder Creek aims to build downtown rec hall

The Boulder Creek Recreation and Park District hopes to build a new community center and park in the heart of Boulder Creek.
However, to win a grant from California for the project, the district must find out what Boulder Creek residents want from a new recreation facility.
The district asks the community to give ideas about what it needs in a rec hall during two Saturday meetings this month. The meetings will determine the scope of the project.
“We’re going to go (to the meetings) with a blank map of the property (and say) here’s our ideas, what do you feel best fits here?” Eric Hammer, the board president, said.
Like the nearby Ben Lomond Park project, Boulder Creek Rec will apply for money through Proposition 84, a 2006 bond that provides $5.4 billion to address drinking water needs and flood control, improve parks and protect natural resources.
Boulder Creek plans to request the maximum grant of $5 million to build a new space that could have classrooms, an industrial kitchen, meeting rooms and outdoor activity areas, a gym with basketball hoops, administrative offices, or other capabilities, district manager Christina Horvat said.
“It’s (a) very competitive (grant),” Horvat said. “There are other very underserved communities that we will be competing against.”
If the district wins the grant, it will move forward with the process of constructing a new headquarters and move out of its leased facility behind the Boulder Creek Fire Protection District. The center would be at Boulder and High streets on Highway 9 at the entrance to Boulder Creek.
Horvat said the new headquarters could be 20,000 square feet.
The district signed a letter of intent to buy four parcels as the site of the headquarters at market value from property owner John Scoppazi. The properties are 12645, 12662 and 12685 Highway 9 and 151 South St.
Although no purchase price was agreed on, the assessed value of the four parcels is $303,815, according to the Santa Cruz County Assessors Office.
There are homes on the properties, and Hammer said it would be at least two or three years before construction began on the recreation center after the land was purchased.
Hammer said that when the district began to put together its strategic plan six years ago, the board of directors determined that the district’s top objective was to build a new facility in the town’s core.
“We’ve been working on this for the past six years,” Hammer said. “This is not a fly-by-night project.”
Even if the district does not win the $5 million grant, he said, it will work in partnership with the community to seek a way to build the center — whether through a bond measure or other financing methods.
The district serves 3,000 visitors each month, and Hammer said it turns away programs because it has too little space.
At a glance
• WHAT: Leaders of the Boulder Creek Recreation and Park District seek input as they work toward a new community center
• WHEN: Meeting, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23; workshop, 9 a.m. to noon Jan. 30
• WHERE: 13333 Middleton Ave., in Boulder Creek
• INFO: 338-4144