$35M recreation center in Harrison moving forward

The Village of Harrison’s Board of Trustees on March 30 approved issuing $12 million in bonds to help finance construction of a new recreation center at 270 Harrison Ave., at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Calvert Street. The total cost of the center was presented as being no more than $35 million.

Harrison Town/Village Engineer Michael Amodeo is expected to shortly advertise for bids for the first phase of the project’s construction. Phase 1 of the project is intended to include site work involving installation of a subsurface geothermal well system to prepare for the geothermal heat pump to be used in heating and cooling the building, preparing a stormwater management facility and installing other utilities.

The project to build a new recreation center was put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic and Harrison turning its attention to purchasing the former Willow Ridge County Club for use as a municipal golf course and recreation facility. The recreation center project was put back into motion last spring. The new facility would be on the site of the current Sollazzo Center and is designed to be significantly larger.

The Mount Kisco-based firm KG+D Architects has designed the new building and created various documents needed for its construction. When the project was reactivated, Russell Davidson, president and principal of KG+D, told Harrison’s board that some changes were made to better handle traffic.

“There were some issues about drop-off areas and the building actually was modified and the curb-cuts were modified to provide drop-off areas and stacking areas on the side street,” Davidson said.

The new recreation center would include two basketball courts along with a walking track. There would be a variety of spaces available for community meetings and other activities. There would be a controlled and secure space on the roof for outdoor use. Office space for the municipality’s recreation department and for operation of the facility would be provided.

“The proposed design has a large multipurpose recreational space. There can be two high-school-size basketball courts, which are heavily in demand. It can be reconfigured to have one full-size court with a lot of retractable bleachers so you can also use it for special events,” Davidson said. “Those bleachers are accessed from below and above. It does have a fitness room. It’s a minor component of the overall recreation center; it’s not a health club. It has a lot of multipurpose event rooms that can be used for senior meetings, dance, all the things that people need meeting space for.”

Davidson described the new building as a very flexible facility and a larger version of the existing Sollazzo Center.

“It has a room dedicated to teens and obviously all the support you need for that,” Davidson said. “You can open one side of the facility without opening the other side of the facility. There’s storage underneath and as much off-street parking as could be provided on the site.”

Davidson said there would be 11 underground parking spaces.

“We did do some test borings early on and we and found that the north side of the site was completely granite,” Davidson said. “We did a study on that and it was not cost-effective to remove all that rock in a downtown area for subsurface parking.”

Pat Cleary, Harrison’s planner, said that something other than a recreation center would not be the best use of the site. He suggested that it would not make economic sense for Harrison to sell the site for development. He suggested that there is a planning rationale for having a municipal quadrangle, which includes the recreation center, library, the municipal building and train station in proximity to each other.

“We’re going to have hundreds of additional residents living in our downtown,” Cleary said. “What we should be doing is creating a public space that’s interesting and active. It’s called placemaking. From a planning perspective, this is not a bad exercise in placemaking.”

In addition to the bonding, which is subject to a permissive referendum, the village plans to finance the project using the transfer of $2,938,000 from the New Public Works Garage Reserve Fund, expenditure of $11,888,000 from the Rec Center Reserve Fund and $11,312,000 from other funds the village currently has on hand.