Cedar Rapids officials go to Time Check to explain why plan is to rebuild flood-ruined rec center in Ellis Park

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Northwest Neighbors Association wasn't happy before a City Hall-appointed Site Selection Committee three weeks ago picked a spot in Ellis Park on which to build a new recreation center to replace the flood-ruined one in the Time Check Neighborhood.

And most members of the association who turned out last night to hear the city's plans for the new center up close hadn't seemed to have changed their minds.

Linda Seger, president of the association and the lone member of the city's Site Selection Committee to vote against the Ellis Park site, suspected that the association would take another vote at its next meeting to let the city know it wanted the replacement recreation center built closer to where the other one had been.

But she said the vote would only mean so much. “It's a done deal,” she said.

The sentiment of the 60 or more people who attended the gathering at the Flamingo restaurant, 1211 Ellis Blvd. NW, was split between those who though the Ellis Park site was too far from the neighborhood and those who thought a recreation center in the park would compromise the park's serenity.

Late last month, the city's Site Selection Committee picked one of three Ellis Park options among five total options for the new recreation center because the site, near the park's tennis courts, is outside the area flooded in 2008, owned by the city, the least cost, easily expandable, easy to find and has an immediate connection to the park.

Julie Sina, the city's parks and recreation director, told the group last night that the city's plans will add “a greenway” along the river in the Time Check Neighborhood in a way that will add many, many more acres of green space to the neighborhood to replace a few acres lost to a recreation center placed in Ellis Park.

Rob Wagner, a supervisor in the Parks and Recreation Department, noted that the existing Time Check Park, where the flood-ruined recreation center still sits, will remain a park and, in fact, will be a “jewel” of a gateway to the greenway along the river stretching up toward Ellis Park.

At the same time,  Wagner said the new recreation center is intended for the entire city, not just for a neighborhood.

Sina liked the suggestion that the city provide a shuttle service for youngsters who want to go to the new recreation center but live too far to walk to it.

The old center was 13,000 square feet with a tiny gym. The plan for the new center calls for a 17,000 square foot building with a regulation-sized gymnasium. Longer-range plans envision a building that one day could grow to 100,000 square feet with indoor pool, indoor running track, four basketball courts and a large meeting room for community events.

Wagner reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is now reviewing all five proposed sites for the new recreation center as well as the site of the old center.

One person said any center in Ellis Park should not be called Time Check.

City Council member Don Karr, who grew up in and around Time Check and supports the Ellis Park site, noted that much of what had been considered Time Check, between Ellis Boulevard NW and the Cedar River, no longer exists because of the 2008 flood and all the homes destroyed there by the high water.