FAIRMONT– Some preliminary concepts for the proposed Fairmont Area Community Center were viewed by the Community Center Advisory Board during its meeting on Wednesday.

City Administrator Cathy Reynolds said they’ve had two stakeholder meetings and at the first one they went over programming and some concepts but at the most recent one, which took place Monday, they reviewed and modified some of the concepts.

“The YMCA had provided some square footage on comparable YMCA’s for what they thought for the aquatics area and field house area,” Reynolds said.

She said Kraus-Anderson had put together some very rough numbers, nothing specific for the facility, but average cost based off of what they’re seeing.

The large “want-list” facility, which was discussed at the first stakeholder meeting, came in at about $54 to $60 million, which included a range of desired amenities and would be about 115,000 sq. ft.

At the second stakeholder meeting, they started to look at more in-line with concepts with what the YMCA would operate.

At the first stakeholder meeting, the YMCA said it would like to see a designated child watch area included in the facility. Reynolds said since then that space has gone down and they’re now discussing doing before and after school care inside the schools.

Board Member Brandon Edmundson said as he understands it, the after school care, for school-aged children, would be in the schools initially, and transition to having the YMCA run it. Reynolds confirmed those conversations are taking place and the school is considering using some of its covid funds for it.

The board agreed that would be a good deal as it will save space in the community center for other amenities. A smaller child watch area would still likely be included in the community center.

Tom Betti of 292 Design Group, the architecture which will be leading the programming and design for the proposed community center, said that they used three program templates to look at three different options. An “all-in” facility, a YMCA-only facility and an ice-only facility.

The all-in facility came out to about 96,261 sq. ft, which Betti said he knows doesn’t fit the budget.

The YMCA-only facility, without an ice arena, would have a lobby and administrative offices, bathrooms, child watch room, meeting rooms, locker rooms, party room, a larger cross-court gym and scaled back fitness areas and multi-purpose exercise studios, as per feedback from the stakeholder meetings. That facility would be about 50,000 sq.ft.

The ice-only facility came out to about 42,000 sq. ft. and includes a lobby, bathrooms, bleachers, concessions, skate rental, mechanical rooms, locker rooms, team rooms, storage rooms and administration offices.

Betti said it’s set up so that they could add on a second sheet of ice in the future if desired.

“These are concept diagrams. They’re not meant to be architecture yet. They’re making sure we’re covering all of the spaces and getting circulation to everything,” Betti said.

As for the aquatics area, which would be in both the YMCA-only facility and all-in facility, Betti said at the most recent stakeholder meeting it was suggested to eliminate the slide. Instead, he said they were looking at putting in a ninja course, which would have monkey bars, etc. over the water.

“It works well for pre-teen to teen to adult. Even some people in their 30s and 40s enjoy it because it’s a challenge,” Betti said.

Again there were conversations about the difference in pools as a lap pool typically has cooler water and is therefore in a room with a cooler temperature, whereas a zero-depth “kiddie” pool has warmer water and is typically in a warm room.

Betti said if both are included, as in the all-in facility, the best thing to do would be to put a wall in between them, likely a glass wall.

Edmundson asked if there is serious consideration of a pool that doesn’t have lap swimming. Betti said they could have a pool that has informal lap swimming. He said at the stakeholder meeting they ranked what they saw as most important for activities in a pool.

“Lap swimming was number four. There was a lot of debate between 1, 2 and 3, which was swimming lessons, recreation play and water exercises. Those top three flip-flopped,” Betti said.

Dick Strassburg of Tegra, the city’s owner’s representative on the project, said that they need to decide how big the building should be, and then they can move the rooms around inside of it.

Edmundson said he’s interested to see what everything will look like when they put dollar signs next to the concepts.

“The next phase of it is to start getting the numbers to these three options and then the

fourth option which is the renovation of the existing ice,” Reynolds said.

The next Community Center Advisory Board meeting will be on Oct. 5