New council member Olson pushes plan for west-side rec center at Harrison

UPDATE: In just his second week in office, new west-side District 4 council member Scott Olson has come up with a plan he says will end an impasse over the siting of a new city recreation center and hopefully will help keep Harrison Elementary School, which is on a school-closing list, open.

Olson on Monday said he will ask his City Council members this week to look to build the city's replacement for the flood-ruined Time Check Recreation Center on the grounds of the Harrison school, 1310 11th St. NW, in a way that would benefit both the recreation center and the school.

“It allows the school and its historic building to be preserved and brings the recreation center closer to the core of the neighborhood,” Olson, a Realtor with Skogman Commercial, explained.

The city's effort to find a new location on which to build the recreation center has been floundering for some 18 months after the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association and residents next to Ellis Park both have expressed opposition to a city plan to build the new recreation center on about an acre of property in Ellis Park.

“As I campaigned through the neighborhoods in my district, I found zero support for any of the sites (for the recreation center) in Ellis Park,” Olson said. “There was a desire of the neighborhood association and residents of the area to try to find an alternative site where the Time Check Rec Center could be located closer in to the neighborhood to make it easy for the kids to reach and spur redevelopment of the flood-damaged areas.”

He noted that some possible sites for the recreation center - including its former home - were ruled out because they are in the 100-year flood plain. The school site, which Olson said has ample open ground on which a recreation center can be built, was not touched by flood water in 2008.

Olson's idea envisions that the city and school district would enter into a sharing relationship in which federal disaster funds for a new recreation center and school funds could result in both new construction at the Harrison school site and renovation of the existing school building. Both the school and recreation center then would be positioned to serve the neighborhood and community as the post-flood recovery of the neighborhood continues to take place, he said.

Mayor Ron Corbett, who has asked the school district to keep the Harrison school open, on Monday said he backed the idea of partnering with the school district on the Harrison property. At the same time, the mayor said he needs to hear what the full council says at its Tuesday meeting about the Ellis Park options for the recreation center.

Dave Benson, superintendent of the Cedar Rapids school district, on Monday said he was aware of Olson's idea and called it "an interesting concept that needs further development."

At the same time, Benson noted that the school district is in the midst of its own public-input process related to school closings, a process that will allow this kind of new information to come out and be reviewed.

"I welcome the opportunity," Benson said.

Olson said he will ask the City Council to create a 60-day task force of city, school and neighborhood leaders to look at the Harrison location as both a school and recreation center.

He said that the Harrison area should be growing, not declining in the years ahead. He noted that new home building is now taking place in the neighborhood, fueled by a disaster-recovery program that provides attractive incentives to those buying the homes. The city, he added, also votes on March 6 to extend the city's 1-percent local-option sales tax to provide revenue to help build a new flood protection system for the city. Flood protection will prompt additional investment in the Harrison area, Olson said.

Over many months of discussion about the recreation center, city officials and a previous city committee said they wanted to the recreation center to be visible, accessible and near public transit.

Olson said the Harrison spot might not be that visible to passers-by, but he said it was accessible and near public transit.

The city has insisted that the new recreation center is a city facility in or near a neighborhood and not just a neighborhood center.

City recreational officials also have been trying for years to get out of the Ambroz Recreation Center, a former school building at 2000 Mount Vernon Rd. SE, because of what they say is its unsuitability for recreational services. Olson said Ambroz has several levels, limited parking and no space for outdoor recreation. The Harrison school site has space for parking and outdoor activities and only two levels, he said.