Cedar Rapids may pursue intergenerational center, sports complex

CEDAR RAPIDS — Tennis shoes squeaked on the wooden floors of the Northwest Recreation Center gymnasium as Connor Kenney and a group of boys and young men ran from one end to another, dribbling a basketball up and down the court.

Kenney, 22, said he shoots hoops with people of all ages, from middle schoolers to fathers in their 40s looking for a workout. On Friday afternoon, just across the hall, about eight people gathered for senior cards.

“To me, this place is a big unifier for that, because it doesn't really matter how old you are, what kind of walk of life you're in right now,” Kenney said. “The thing that brings us together is that we all like playing basketball. We all like being here, talking to new people.”

This recreation center houses a number of the city of Cedar Rapids’ Parks and Recreation programs and is essentially at capacity with the services it can offer, city officials say.

And though the facility offers some activities for seniors, some say more services dedicated to older adults are needed after the loss of the Witwer Senior Center in the 2008 flood, and at a time when the nation’s demographics are shifting. The number of Americans ages 65 and older will more than double in the next 40 years, reaching 80 million in 2040.

To expand recreational programming and offer another space where people of all ages can gather and recreate, the city has issued a request for proposals to conduct a feasibility study of a dual-use facility serving as an intergenerational center and sports complex.

This planning effort is one of several action items that arose during city staff’s process of drafting the Age-Friendly Action Plan to guide steps to help Cedar Rapids grapple with demographic shifts while making the community more livable.

The City Council is slated to consider the plan at its meeting at noon Tuesday in the City Hall council chambers, 101 First St. SE.

Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said citizens have been asking for this for years and she’s thrilled Cedar Rapids is taking this step.

“Everybody deserves a place of their own,” O’Donnell said. “We also know the benefits of mixing generations, for young and old to learn from each other. This is an ideal opportunity for different generations to be exposed to one another.”

“I think any growing and vibrant city needs a place like this for their community. As the second largest city in the state, our citizens deserve a place like this, regardless of their age.”

Facility ‘for all generations’

For the potential new facility, Community Development Director Jennifer Pratt said staff anticipate being able to get someone under contract to conduct the feasibility study by January and completing it by June 2023.

Pratt said one of the key points of the study is to take stock of the existing private activities in the community so the city can fill gaps and not compete with existing resources, or expand on successful programming.

The combined sports complex would be intended to offer tournament-scale events.

“We have to be looking at it competitively as a community to make sure that we have the facilities we need for both practice in between as well as for those type of tournaments,” Pratt said.

The study will assess whether combining these uses into one facility makes sense and accomplishes the intended goals.

“While there may be spillover benefits to shared space, this feasibility study must ensure that goals for both the intergenerational community center and sports complex can be accomplished and that the needs and interests of the community are not compromised,” according to bid documents.

Other details of a potential center including location, cost and whether it could be a new building or redeveloped existing facility are undetermined at this point, but Pratt said everything is on the table.

Long-term maintenance and operations needs such as staffing or whether a private partnership would be recommended for facility management also will be considered. The city also is looking for the study to include an economic impact analysis projecting things such as job creation and indirect and direct spending.

“That (study) will help us really identify the need and where to put the possible facility to program for all generations here in Cedar Rapids so everyone has access to recreation, not just one demographic, or one generation,” Parks and Recreation Director Hashim Taylor said.

City staff are looking to expand fitness offerings for active adults, he said. There have been some steps already to expand such programming, such as the FitLot at Jones Park in partnership with AARP.

Ultimately, the uses of a potential facility are something the study could help determine. Pratt said among age groups, there’s a spectrum of activities that people want, from card games to fitness.

“We have to be listening and not just putting people into a category, but really listening to the types of activities that they're interested in,” Pratt said.

The existing Northwest Recreation Center, 1340 11th St. NW, opened in August 2016 as the first municipal building specifically built for recreational programming in Cedar Rapids. It offers programs ranging from youth and adult art classes and open gyms, to belly dancing and line dancing.

That facility replaced the Time Check Recreation Center, which served as a neighborhood center for the northwest area and offered Parks and Recreation programs for the entire city.

According to the city, admissions totaled 17,202 in the 2022 budget year that ended June 30. Numbers are still rebounding from COVID-19 disruptions. Total admissions for the past six years are 130,039.

Kenney said he comes to play basketball during open gym hours, sometimes alone and other times with his Aldi co-worker Seth. At just $2 for adults and $1 for kids, and with hours until 5 p.m. every day except Sunday, Kenney said it beats the YMCA’s price.

The only drawback he noted was that open gym only lasts a few hours, limiting people who work full-time jobs or every weekday. He’d like to see a facility offer longer hours still at a low cost. But, he said, it still beats the alternatives for the price and convenience.

“I think anyone that wants to come play basketball, come play pool, come play pingpong, or just hang out, I think it's great,” Kenney said.

While playing a game of double pinochle as part of senior cards, recreation specialist Trish Chalupsky, the senior program adviser, said the Northwest Recreation Center feels crowded at times, and there’s not enough storage space for all the programming there.

“Having another building off from the kids coming in for after-school stuff would be beneficial to this population,” Chalupsky said. “It gets kind of loud and noisy and busy, a lot of shuffling around.”

Sometimes, parking is insufficient when a variety of programs are happening at the same time, Chalupsky said. And she said the public bus stop is too far away for some of the residents she works with, so she often picks them up and takes them to the center.

Still, people come here because it’s fairly centrally located and friendships blossom, Chalupsky said. On Friday, the cards group was celebrating Marilyn Davis’ recent birthday.

She wants to see Cedar Rapids “keep up with the Joneses” and offer facilities competing with Iowa City and Marion.

Age-Friendly Action Plan

Early efforts to make Cedar Rapids a community where people of all ages can thrive began about 10 years ago with the Blue Zones Project. The community-by-community movement focuses on permanent environmental and policy changes that will make it easier for residents to live longer, healthier lives.

Creating this plan is the next step in joining the Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, Pratt said. There are more than 650 other cities and states in the U.S. and over 1,000 communities across the globe that are part of the network.

Community Service Coordinator Stephanie Schrader said the plan is framed around eight key themes that strongly affect community livability:

Schrader said a common theme in feedback from the action plan is people are seeking intergenerational opportunities to connect with people of different ages.

The dual-use facility could offer opportunities for all generations to work together, Assistant City Manager Angie Charipar said.

Pratt said city staff also have received feedback on the need to have quieter activities, so staff are keeping in mind ways to design a building to allow both spaces for interaction and spaces with less noise and disruption.

In addition to exploring the dual-use facility, another tangible action item stemming from the plan is the creation of an art walk around downtown to allow people to connect with public art and “see downtown almost through a new lens,” Schrader said, alone or with someone else.

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com