While a sparkling new hub for young Gilroyans remains a distant dream for the foreseeable future, the City of Gilroy is spending roughly $1 million in local and federal funds to upgrade the community’s three-year-old interim youth center located at San Ysidro Park.
The renovations, which the Gilroy City Council unanimously approved Dec. 12, include expanding the 1,800-square-foot center an additional 290 square feet, laying out a new basketball court and adding a disability compliant restroom.
The fix-ups – badly needed, center leaders say – carry a price tag of more than $770,000.
But almost $100,000 in planning costs and a construction management contract for up to $86,000 to oversee the project – which is assisted by $130,000 in federal stimulus dollars – sends estimated costs skyward.
“It seems high to me,” Councilman Perry Woodward said. “But whenever you do these projects where you’re dealing with the federal government, it can get expensive.”
“It’s frustrating it’s so expensive,” Woodward added, “but it is.”
The $86,000 construction management contract – with Palo Alto-based Nova Partners, Inc. – will also over see a sidewalk repair project on 10th Street.
The winning youth center renovation bid went to Fremont-based Calstate Construction, whose offer was just $8,000 less than the runner-up – Gilroy’s Kent Construction, according to a city staff report.
And while the overall bids were comparable, Calstate scored higher on scales that reward companies who hire or subcontract to greater percentages of “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.” Known as Underutilized Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, it’s a requirement often applicable in federally funded transportation projects, and it’s also a must for the city if it wants to use the stimulus cash, according to the staff report.
“They had both,” Smelser said about Calstate. “They had the low bid and they satisfied the requirements.”
Federal requirements also dictate the city must pay prevailing wage, an issue that sprouted some controversy last year when city leaders revved up construction plans for the new library next door to City Hall. The approved construction bid factors in prevailing wage, as did all the bids, Smelser said.
“That is fairly common. Any time you deal with the feds, you deal with those type of environments,” said Woodward, who’s a member of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s board of directors. “If you’re going to spend their money, there’s strings attached to it.”
Even with those strings, Woodward says the city’s current plan is its best bet. He said he didn’t think the project would be more cost effective if the city moved ahead without the federal help.
“I don’t anticipate any problems,” he said.
Councilman Bob Dillon also said he was comfortable with the project’s price tag, saying, “It seemed within reason to me.”
“I thought we got a decent bid,” Dillon said. “Which has happened lately because of the economic downturn.”
The city staff report says the renovations should finish by May, though City Senior Civil Engineer David Stubchaer says the improvements could wrap up even sooner.
That’s good news for the youth center’s three-person staff and several dozen daily visitors who will have to hold their free daily activities in a temporary trailer during the renovations, site leader Tucker Baksa said.
The improvements couldn’t have been scheduled for a better time, he said, as summer days tend to draw upwards of 130 Gilroyans between ages 6 and 17.
“It would be tough to do our summer program in the trailer. But we’d make it work if we had to,” said Baksa, son of former Gilroy City Administrator Jay Baksa.
And the north side expansion, though just a 16 percent increase in space, will certainly help, Baksa added.
“Anything where we can get a little more room is good,” Baksa said.
He’s said he’s also excited about replacing the building’s sliding screen door, which has been boarded up ever since an unknown assailant chucked a rock through it over the summer. The center’s kitchen will be refurbished, Baksa said, allowing staff to continue a recently adopted program of allowing each youngster one hot meal a day.
They might work up an appetite running up and down the brand-new basketball courts, complete with pristine concrete resurfacing. The current asphalt surface is littered with cracks and crevasses, while its half-court and free-throw lines are nearly worn away completely.
“It’s been kind of slowly deteriorating,” Baksa said.
For now, the temporary fixes at the interim center will have to do, as the city isn’t likely to build a new youth center from scratch any time soon, nor is it likely to return to its previous spot at the corner of Sixth and Railroad streets.
“I suppose it could happen,” Dillon said about a new center, quoted at approximately $9.5 million by city officials last year. “But the best thing we have to do right now is renovate that one (at San Ysidro Park).”
That former youth center site, closed in 2008, included two buildings: a 1,622-square-foot structure once used for youth boxing activities and 5,127-square-foot building. The center, constructed of hollow clay tile in some areas, was declared an unreinforced masonry structure, meaning it didn’t stand up to seismic requirements, according to an August 2010 city staff report.
The city has explored selling the old youth center property to help pay for renovations at the interim center.
Gilroy’s interim youth center is open Monday through Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the school year, and is open Monday through Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. during summer months.
Construction
– Recreation building and 290-sq.-foot addition $474,444
– General site improvements $6,000
– Concrete retaining wall $46,000
– Replace paving at basketball courts $80,000
– Replace asphalt at play/picnic area $15,000
– Add basketball court $106,000
– Add new concrete at picnic area $30,000
– Add epoxy flooring at restrooms $5,000
TOTAL: $771,744
Other costs
– Design contract – Hemingway/Stock, Inc. $99,995
– Construction management and materials testing $86,200
– Options study – Hemingway/Stock $16,915
TOTAL: $203,110
Estimated project cost: $974,854
