Surfside

On the Side of Surf

 Designs for new community center make it through the next lap

By Angie Hargot

The town of Surfside is moving ahead on a plan for its new $14.1 million community center. Elected officials approved one of four options presented by project architects in a special meeting Tuesday, advancing a venture two years in the making.

“Scheme C,” as project planners called it, includes a 27,000-square-foot building positioned parallel to Collins Avenue on the current community center property, which lies east of the thoroughfare. That building will house a library, community programming space, a meeting hall, pool facilities and other amenities.

After considering the various uses of the site and seeing the architects’ elevation drawings, commissioners and about 70 residents decided that the proposed building, with its stilted transparent first floor, would make best use of the available area without losing the view. The option also leaves more area to the east.

The site also will offer a wave pool, lap pool, skate park, palm tree terrace and food facilities.

The town replaced its former design company, Acai Associates Inc., with the architectural firm of Spillis Candela and Partners in September.

“You have gone through two years of this,” said Spillis Candela architect Lawrence Kline. “We want to do as much as we need to do to exploit the site.”

The pool-heavy plan, which “re-creates the ocean,” as the architect described it, was conceived in response to residents’ dismay about the town’s lack of a pool.

“In the summer the pool is very heavily used,” said Commissioner Steven Levine, who disapproved of a pool “devoted just to laps. I don’t want to give it over to a swim team.”

However, many residents said they missed their pool, which was closed in July 2006 after two adults and a child received electrical shocks while swimming. An electric pool light was blamed.

There was also support for the skate park component. “The skate park is a great idea,” said 12-year-old Ethan Roman, reading from his prepared speech. “We’ll have something more to do than play video games and watch TV.”

Bryan Corcoran, 12, agreed. “When we skate on your lawns, you guys hate that.”

The direction passed Tuesday does not include the planned gymnasium, which could be built on town property west of Collins. Mayor Charles Burkett described the gymnasium option as a serious “topic of discussion.”

The architectural team, which recommended option C and a similar design, said the plans are not set in stone, but do establish the orientation of the building and the footprint for the main components.

Citing everything from the building’s architecture to the duplication of facilities should the gymnasium be located off-site, residents expressed a host of concerns pertaining to the project, not the least of which was transportation.

“I don’t see any additional parking” in these plans, said resident Alan Gorne. Kline, the project’s architect, replied that extra parking on-site was never a consideration in the planning.

“The idea was to put parking west of Collins,” Kline said. Project planners determined it would cost $13.6 million to renovate the existing site, built in 1962.

Commissioner Steven Levine was outspoken about his desire for a library with windows facing the ocean, creating a terrace where residents could relax with coffee and a good book.

“And I would charge everyone $1,000 for a year membership in our ‘country club,’” Levine said. “That would be paradise.”

After Burkett asked for a show of hands and residents overwhelmingly supported option C, the option passed 4-1, with Commissioner Marc Imberman dissenting.

Commissioners suggested that residents could see their new building in as little as 20 months. “Eighteen months is a very optimistic time frame,” Burkett said Wednesday.

“We got somewhere tonight,” said resident Richard Iacobacci. “We’re moving forward.”

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com.

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