Poway council to pick community center design

Poway City Council members on Tuesday night will be asked to select among three designs for a long-proposed combined senior-community center in Community Park.

The designs, based on craftsman, mission and modified contemporary themes, have been prepared by the city’s consultant. The firm was sent back to the drawing board following a Sept. 14, 2014 council workshop where a preliminary design was rejected by the council as having too much of an industrial feel. Modifications to the building’s floor plan were also recommended.

To be known as the Mickey Cafagna Community Center, the building will be about 36,000 square feet in size and will replace both the aging community and senior centers at the park. The new building will be located a little closer to the city’s aquatic center.

In a report to the council, Development Services Director Robert Manis wrote that the idea of replacing the center first surfaced in 2006, during preparation of conceptual plans for the Town Center project, a mixed-use development along Poway Road. Public workshops were held between 2007 and 2009, but further efforts were shelved during the recession.

Planning efforts focusing just on the senior and community centers were resumed in January 2011, but were again stalled a year later with the state-ordered dissolution of the city’s redevelopment agency. The current effort was restated in December 2013, Manis wrote, leading to last September’s workshop where the exterior design was rejected.

As to Tuesday night’s meeting, Manis is asking that if the five members of the council are not in unanimous support of one of the three alternatives, that a ranking process be used to determine which design should move forward.

“Completing the schematic design will allow the city to move forward with a contract to complete the final design and construction documents when funding is identified,” Manis wrote. “Preparation of the construction documents will be done through the normal bidding process for design work and a separate bid will be done for construction and project management.”

Potential funding sources and financing options will be presented at a future meeting, Manis said.

Tuesday night’s meeting will start a 7 o’clock in the council chambers, 13325 Civic Center Drive. The meeting will be televised live on local cable systems and will be streamed online at www.poway.org