At the Cook County Board of Commissioners July 11 meeting commissioners discussed making some improvements to the Cook County Community Center with Diane Booth, director of Cook County Extension services whose office is located there.
Currently the county technology department is adding a dark fiber tech equipment room in the back of the Community Center, with plans to add a couple of large panel screens to equip the center for a redundant space in case of some catastrophic event at the courthouse. It’s a joint effort with Emergency Management.
The building is 24 years old and in need of some repairs (leaky roof etc.) and upgrades, said Booth. Those fixes plus community conversation started by Cook County Health and Human Services Director Josh Beck on the need for more child care in the county and the possibility of the county making space for childcare led Booth to drawing a plan to expand the Community Center. While Booth didn’t have the plan with her, she shared the concepts with commissioners.
A highlight of the plan would be the addition of 6,400 square feet for childcare for infants and toddlers. Booth said in-home childcare providers usually don’t like to take this age group because they need more staff and they don’t make as much money by taking care of children this young. Beck and administrator Jeff Cadwell, said Booth, have both talked about the difficulties of hiring new staff and retaining current county staff because of the shortage of child care in the area, so this would help fill that need.
Besides adding two multipurpose rooms that could be used for childcare, there would be new restrooms, new office space, and new storage space for tables and chairs.
The kitchen area will be expanded to act as an incubator space for start-up businesses. More commercial kitchen appliances and equipment for the expanded existing kitchen and kitchen facilities in both the toddler and infant spaces are also in the plans.
Also mentioned was: . Building new locker room spaces for the curling club . Kitchen expansion into the old restrooms . Playground addition / changes . New compressors . New LED lights, new paint, new carpets as needed . Some building insulation, roof repair, fix leaking in arena . New blacktop . New parking lot by the ball field
Booth said she had worked in the building for almost 24 years, “So I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t work.” She added that she tried to draw a plan that would be efficient, cost effective, and useable for all of the groups that work out of the building.
Duluth architect Tim Meyer looked at Booth’s drawing and according to Cadwell said it looked pretty good, but would need to be redrawn by an architect. Meyer submitted a bid of $14,600, which the county board accepted, and he will draw professional plans for the space.
Administrator Cadwell said this could be called Phase Two for the Community Center, and plans could be drawn up that would work for the next 25 years.
If the county goes through with adding on to the Community Center, Booth said two half-time and two full-time jobs would be created, as well as bumping the current half-time janitor to full-time. She figured that additional energy costs, staffing costs and maintenance would run about $235,000 per year. But if the building were filled to capacity with tenants and kids, that income would bring in about $240,000 per year. There would also be a good chance the county could get some start up grants for the addition, said Booth.
The county will most probably use capital improvement bonding this fall to secure funds to fix the roof at the courthouse, windows at the courthouse and windows at the Law Enforcement Center, and, said Cadwell, with the county now retiring and recapturing debt service, this might be a chance to get a larger capital improvement bond so this work can be done.
However, those decisions will be left to a later date. The county board will await the drawings from Meyer and discuss the future of the Community Center at that point.
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