Sea Isle City's community center is looking "really good"

Sea Isle City officials are giving a preview of things to come as construction moves into the final few months for the new $21 million community recreation center.

The project remains on schedule and within budget heading toward a grand opening sometime this fall. City Business Administrator George Savastano said the city hopes to hold the first formal event in the community center on New Year’s Eve.

“I don’t want to make a guarantee, but we are on track and the building is looking really good,” Savastano said while giving an update on the project at the Aug. 12 City Council meeting.

In a new development, the city plans to tap a $150,000 contingency fund, which is included in the $21 million construction contract, to make some improvements and add new attractions to the community center.

One new feature will be to add an acoustic ceiling to the building’s community room for better sound quality. The community room will have a stage and is expected to one of the most heavily used parts of the building for meetings, events, entertainment and other activities.

In another change, the city is planning to add two new rooms upstairs for wall ball and a golf simulator.

The wall ball room will feature a variety of fitness games for children and adults and will also be available to seniors to improve their hand-eye coordination, city spokeswoman Katherine Custer explained.

However, two local residents, Joann McCauley and Steve Cossaboon, questioned whether the wall ball and golf simulator rooms would even be used by the public. Instead, they urged city officials to add a fitness room that would accommodate Sea Isle’s senior citizens.

Cossaboon said he found it “personally offensive” that the city isn’t seeking more public input for the types of facilities that should be included in the community center.

“It’s absurd. It really is,” Cossaboon told city officials during the Aug. 12 Council meeting.

Cossaboon urged the city to include a fitness room for local seniors in the community center. He said a fitness room would save seniors from having to pay the cost of joining an expensive private health club or gym.

McCauley also told city officials that it is too expensive for seniors to join a private gym. She believes a fitness room inside the community center would provide an affordable and convenient option for seniors.

“If you’re a year-round resident, you should be able to use it,” McCauley said while pushing for a fitness room for seniors.

Custer responded to Cossaboon and McCauley by saying the city didn’t want to have facilities at the community center that would compete with local businesses, including private gyms or health clubs.

    An architectural rendering depicts the community center's glossy facade. (Courtesy of Ernest Bock & Sons Inc.)
  

The building’s design reflects the facility’s dual role as a community center and recreation facility. There will be a large gymnasium, basketball court, indoor walkway and workout space for sports and recreation. The building will also include space that local community groups may use for meetings, events and other activities.

During the Council meeting, Custer outlined an array of activities that the city is planning for the community center, including sports, recreation, special events, meetings, arts and crafts, theater camps and even line dancing and ballet classes, among other things.

“As the opening approaches, we want to assure everyone that we are indeed going to hit the ground running,” said Custer, who serves as Sea Isle’s director of community services, tourism and public relations.

Another feature will be a “quiet room” that will serve as a reading room, after-school study room, and a place that will have sensory features for families with special-needs children.

“In short, the building will be well-used,” Custer said. “We are confident that when it opens, we’ll have a lot to offer.”

Architectural renderings of the community center show a glossy facade overlooking Central Avenue between 45th and 46th streets. A material resembling red brick will also cloak the front of the building as part of the attractive architecture to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood.

The community center will include a covered parking area underneath the building at street level that will have 40 spaces.

The facility will not include a swimming pool. During a 2019 referendum, local property owners voted overwhelmingly against including an indoor pool in the community center. The fear at that time was that a pool would make the project much more expensive for Sea Isle taxpayers.

To make room for construction of the community center, the city demolished the old Sea Isle City Public School at 4501 Park Road. The community center will occupy the same footprint of the old school on the block bordered by Park Road, Central Avenue, 45th Street and 46th Street.

The construction contractor is Ernest Bock & Sons Inc., a Philadelphia-based company that has built a diversified portfolio of more than $3 billion worth of public and private projects in the Philadelphia area, New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic region.

    The building's design reflects its dual role as a recreation facility and community center.