Work on new Boys & Girls Club slowed, but moving forward

A building code has slowed work at the new Boys & Girls Club, but the group is almost done with plans and fundraising.

The new club and the city's new $9 million recreation center were scheduled to be connected under a joint-use agreement, but the city learned this month that a fire safety code prevented that.

The club and the city are now renegotiating the agreement and plans for the two buildings, which will be separate.

The $5 million club at Russell Way and Northridge Drive is close to being finished, but it still needs several hundred thousand dollars for fixtures, furniture and equipment, said Hal Hansen, director of the Boys & Girls Club of Western Nevada.

Work started on the 12,600-square-foot club in fall 2005. It is scheduled to open in spring 2009.

The club has been in its 7,000-sqare-foot building on South Stewart Street for more than 14 years, a space that is "just inadequate for the children we serve," Hansen said.

The club has about 1,600 children and teenagers as members. It runs education, social and mentor programs.

These members will be able to use the city's recreation center, which includes a gym, fitness room, fields and possibly a climbing wall, skate park and outdoor water play area, if an agreement is reached.

The club could add tennis courts that the recreation center could also use.

Construction on the center is scheduled to start next year. The project was requested in the 1996 Quality of Life ballot initiative and will be paid for by the sales tax passed with that vote.

Under the possible agreement, the city also would get the recreation center land on the 11-acre site for free, and the club would save about $500,000 because the city would pay for the parking lot and landscaping.

Suggestions to partner with the club go back to 1996 but recent talks started last year. The city had tried to partner with Western Nevada College, but the Legislature didn't approve money for that plan.

Work has been delayed, said Supervisor Pete Livermore, but, "it's still a commitment, and it's still a partnership."

"It was a setback, a glitch, but guess what?" he said, "I think it's going to be better in the long run."

- Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.