Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough remembers sitting at a planning meeting and talking up plans for a combined library and recreation center on the East Side.
The bold move would require tearing down the Arlington Recreation Center, emptying the city’s century-old Carnegie library on Greenbrier Street, and possibly introducing funeral services and worship space into the mix.
More information about the Payne-Maryland project is available at tinyurl.com/paynemaryland.
“There was a lot of ‘deer in the headlights’ looks,” said McDonough, addressing a crowd of several dozen East Siders and political officials on Thursday, July 26. “ ‘You want to do what?’”
A poster display outside the Arlington Recreation Center depicts the future Payne-Maryland rec center and library, to open in 2013. City officials held a groundbreaking on July 26, 2012.
After six years of planning and more than a few tweaks, the combined library and rec center project at the corner of Payne and Maryland avenues is finally becoming a reality. McDonough joined St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the man who has arguably become the project’s biggest proponent -- City Council Member Dan Bostrom -- in a groundbreaking for the $14 million undertaking.
The actual demolition of the existing rec center is expected to start in early August. Kelley Riley, a board member with the Payne-Phalen District 5 Planning Council, said that six years of community meetings helped soften some hard stances against the project. Based on feedback, the architectural firm HGA reduced the center from a three-level design to two levels and altered the façade.
They “really tried to incorporate what the East Side buildings look like, rather than something you see in the suburbs,” said Riley, in an interview.
Bostrom and other proponents have noted that the East Side is home to nearly half of the city’s youth, and a disproportionate number of minority and low-income families, but has a dearth of youth facilities.
Sammie Young kept one eye on his three grandkids and the other on the groundbreaking taking place across the street from his son’s apartment. Young, an East Side youth coach, said the new building will help draw older kids back “into the recs rather than being here on the streets, doing negative things.”
The new building is expected to offer more than just a gym and library aisles when it opens in the fall of 2013. Plans include a running track, a teen multimedia lab, a kitchen, and classroom and community meeting rooms.
“We do so much good throughout the community,” said city Parks and Recreation Director Mike Hahm, “and this is going to give us an opportunity to come together in a building and provide those services.”
Al Oertwig, president of the District 5 Planning Council, said the popular Arlington Hills library -- built in 1917 -- was too small to meet the community’s needs and lacks handicapped accessibility. Deputy St. Paul Public Library director Debbie Willms said her department is working with the city’s real estate division on examining new uses for the library, which sits on the national historic register.
“We’re not at a point of actually knowing what’s going to happen with it,” Willms said.
Brad Griffith is an East Side resident with some reservations about a proposed second phase of construction for the Payne-Maryland project, which he feels may cross the line between the legal separation of church and state.
The Payne-Maryland Partnership, which is largely comprised of the Bradshaw Funeral Home and Arlington Hills Lutheran Church, hopes to raise enough money to add social service space and a “celebration of life” spirituality center.
He and other residents have also expressed concern that pouring $14 million into new construction will give the city an excuse to close underperforming rec centers in the area, such as the Duluth and Case rec center off Phalen Boulevard. The city council last year passed a two-year moratorium on rec center closings as a precaution.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said Griffith, a realtor, studying a poster board rendering of the future Payne-Maryland center. “But I’m still a big fan of rec centers. I don’t want to see anything taken away.”
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