Site-selection, budget workgroups present recommended program and financing options for Grove City community center

Council heard a detailed report on an updated community-center program, site-selection results and financing options Monday night from the committees that studied the project and consulting teams.

The combined site-selection and finance work produced a recommended base program of roughly 188,000 square feet that includes a 14,000-square-foot senior center addition, about 5,800 square feet of added competitive-pool area, a teaching kitchen, four community rooms and expanded circulation and mechanical space. The consultants also presented six finalist sites across the city and a financing approach that would rely primarily on an extension of the Pinnacle TIF and other local revenue and fundraising to limit taxpayer burden.

The recommendation matters because it moves Grove City from high-level concepts toward specific program, site and budget figures that councilors can use when they pursue property control, design and eventual voter authorization of public financing. The committees noted the program grew from an initial 120,000-square-foot estimate to the larger total after adding…