Teen Center could be open by October
August 23, 2011
By Caleb Heeringa
$100,000 donation from Mary Pigott will help project
Sammamish’s teen center is inching closer to reality.
Boys and Girls Club of King County officials are aiming for an early October opening for the 10,000 square foot facility, which will include a computer lab, performance stage, teaching kitchen and game space with ping pong and pool tables.
The center, located in the old King County Library building at the corner of 228th Avenue and Inglewood Hill Road, is owned by the city of Sammamish and is being leased to the Boys and Girls Club, which raised more than $1 million for its remodel.
Jane Ronngren, executive director for the Redmond and Sammamish branch, said having a full-fledged Sammamish facility has been in the works since she started working for the group in 1992.
“The economy has tanked on us twice since then,” Ronngren said. “But the dream is rapidly becoming reality.”
Construction crews work on what will be a stage in the Sammamish EX3 Teen and Recreation Center. The Boys and Girls Club hopes to have the center open by early October.
Though organizers had planned to include a fully functioning recording studio in the club, Jeremy Peck, resource development manager for the Boys and Girls Club, said the organization is holding off on that part of the project for now due to the cost and a low level of interest in the studios installed in other clubs around the region. But he said the center will have plenty to offer the budding musicians of Sammamish – including a stage for concerts and open mic nights and a deluxe sound system that can be used to record live performances.
“Whatever can be done on a stage that teens want to do, we can do it here,” Peck said.
The club will also feature a fully functioning kitchen. Peck said teens can take a cooking class that will teach them how to prepare a meal from beginning to end – from buying food at the grocery store to preparing it and serving it. Teens can bring the final product home to serve to their families.
A computer lab will also be used for technology classes and could be open to seniors and the rest of the community during the hours that teens are usually in school.
Ronngren said the city and club are planning on offering programming during the day for seniors and the community as a whole, though that may wait until later in 2012 once organizers get settled in the facility.
Peck said the agency expects to set user fees at around $120 for an annual pass – about $10 a month. The club offers a sliding scale for lower income families.
Despite the million dollars of donations collected so far, the agency still has a way to go when it comes to fundraising. The center will need around $250,000 a year to break even on operating expenses and $3-3.5 million is needed for construction of the next phase of the project, a 7,000 square foot gym with a climbing wall next to the current building.
Ronngren said the gym will be used for the club’s sports programs, which currently operate out of school gyms. But she said she’s excited at the prospect of offering more non-traditional sports such as a dodgeball league as well as possibly opening the facility up to adult leagues in the evenings.
“We can’t build it until we get the money raised,” she said. “That depends on the community getting behind it.”
The center recently got a financial boost from local resident Mary Pigott, who has pledged $100,000 over the next four years for the agency’s operating budget. Though her children are now grown up, Pigott said she hoped the teen center would be safe entertainment for local teens “who don’t have (cars) but want to stretch their wings a bit” – something Pigott said the Plateau has lacked the entire time she’s been here.
Pigott recalls memories of the 1970s when kids rode horses to Sadler’s Country Store, where QFC is currently located.
“You could go there and eat penny candy and that was about it,” she said. “That was what the good kids did anyways.”
Pigott said that the teen center opening shouldn’t stop the city from building a community and aquatic center. She said a wealthy community of more than 45,000 needs more than just the teen center.
“There’s plenty of room for both,” Pigott said. “We’re not a little bunch of people up here anymore, there’s a lot of us up here and we could support a good diversity of service providers.”
Pigott said she thought about donating to the center anonymously but agreed to attach her name to the money in hopes that it would inspire others in the community to support the Boys and Girls Club.
“Instead of buying a new car every year, how about you invest that money into your community?” Pigott said.
For more information on the teen center, visit: http://rs.positiveplace.org/teencenter.html
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