As Palo Alto advances its plan to construct a public health club, metropolis leaders are banking on native philanthropists to step up and assist town fund the undertaking.
The health club gave the impression to be on a quick observe two months in the past, with billionaire philanthropist John Arrillaga providing to contribute greater than $30 million for the undertaking. As a part of the proposal, he stipulated that he would select the design the health club and choose the development group to construct it.
Arrillaga, who funded the development of gyms and athletic fields all through the Peninsula — together with in Menlo Park and at Stanford College — died on Jan. 24. The provide is not on the desk.
That, nonetheless, has not deterred the Metropolis Council from reaffirming on Monday its assist for the undertaking, which additionally enjoys the unanimous endorsement of town’s Parks and Recreation Fee. Final 12 months, the fee evaluated quite a few places for a brand new health club, which embody a ten.5-acre website close to the Baylands Athletic Heart and an unspecified space within the typically underserved Ventura neighborhood.
Commissioner Anne Cribbs, who served on a committee that research the health club proposal, stated the fee envisioned a two-story facility with a minimum of two basketball courts in addition to house for volleyball, pickleball, indoor soccer, badminton and desk tennis. The 37,500-foot constructing would additionally embody space for storing, train rooms, lecture rooms, restrooms and altering rooms.
Commissioners, council members and metropolis employees all agree that there’s loads of demand for a health club. The town would not presently have a public health club, although it leases the health club at Cubberley Group Heart from the Palo Alto Unified Faculty District. Daren Anderson, assistant director within the Group Companies Division, stated Monday that metropolis services are “nearly all the time reserved within the afternoons and evenings day by day of the week.”
“Sports activities applications, particularly center faculty athletics and grownup sports activities, are working over capability and it is tough to increase these applications as a result of they depend on these restricted health club areas and discipline areas,” Anderson stated.
Council member Tom DuBois, who has been concerned in numerous sports activities leagues, agreed and stated that it has been “harrowing” making an attempt to schedule groups. Final December, Arrillaga reached out to him to make the health club provide. Although that provide is not relevant, it continues to form how town is approaching the undertaking. DuBois stated he nonetheless hopes town will pursue a “design and construct” method that empowers a contractor to successfully steer the undertaking from starting to finish, doubtlessly saving money and time.
DuBois additionally steered that philanthropic contributions could also be required to make the health club dream a actuality. For precedent, he pointed to the just lately reconstructed Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, a preferred neighborhood attraction that grew to become doable by way of a $25 million contribution from nonprofit “pals” group. This included a $15 million donation from the household of Dick Peery, which additionally offered $24 million to Palo Alto Excessive Faculty for its new health club in 2013.
Whereas some council members expressed issues that constructing a health club with public funding would displace different initiatives which have been within the metropolis’s capital plan for a number of 12 months – together with a brand new skate park and a historical past museum – DuBois steered that if non-public funding could be obtained, the health club can transfer up shortly within the metropolis’s precedence listing with out jeopardizing different deliberate expenditures.
“If we had been capable of assemble a major quantity of fundraising then for me the precedence of the undertaking would rise,” DuBois stated.
His colleagues agreed and by a unanimous vote directed the fee to proceed evaluating the brand new health club, together with doable places and options of the brand new facility. The fee was additionally requested to guage fundraising alternatives, an project that Cribbs enthusiastically accepted.
“I consider in Palo Alto,” Cribbs stated. “I have been a long-time resident and I consider there are assets on this neighborhood to get this health club deliberate and constructed.”
The council additionally requested the fee to extra absolutely discover the native demand for a brand new health club and to contemplate extra places, together with Cubberley Group Heart. Whereas the Parks and Recreation Fee has been loath to totally discover Cubberley, which for years has been topic to at instances tense negotiations between town and the college district, the scenario has modified in latest months because the council dropped its prior plan to rebuild your complete middle in partnership with the district and to focus as an alternative on the 8 acres of the 35-acre middle that it really owns.
Different websites that the fee had briefly thought of and will revisit embody Greer Park and Mitchell Park.
Regardless of the location, council members steered on Monday that they consider the ability can be nicely used. Stone referred to as the health club a “nice thought,” notably if non-public funding could be obtained for the undertaking.
“I am excited to see what could be executed there and hopefully create a brand new mannequin transferring ahead to get numerous these capital initiatives executed by actually opening up the philanthropy of our personal residents,” Stone stated,
Monica Williams, president of the Palo Alto Pickleball Membership, agreed and urged the council to proceed exploring a brand new health club. Her membership now has about 750 members, she stated, about half of whom are from Palo Alto. Demand for health club house will turn into ever extra acute as pickleball continues to develop, she stated.
“It is time for Palo Alto to have its personal gymnasium for all sports activities,” Williams stated.