Anyone who drives by the Community and Cultural Center Monterey
Road/Dunne Avenue will have an opinion of its design. The
California Parks and Recreation Society has one too, and it
’s totally positive.
Anyone who drives by the Community and Cultural Center Monterey Road/Dunne Avenue will have an opinion of its design. The California Parks and Recreation Society has one too, and it’s totally positive.
CPRS recently announced that the Morgan Hill center would receive an “Award of Excellence” for facility design during a training conference in Anaheim on March 12. The award is in community center design for cities with populations between 20,001 and 50,000. The town’s population, as of Jan. 1, 2003, was 34,900.
“We’re very excited and proud of this award,” said Recreation Manager Julie Spier. ”This award is very competitive. They do not have to present an award at this level.”
Management Analyst Margarita Huertas-Balagso, who wrote the award application, also was pleased.
“We are really thrilled to get this award as a new facility,” Balagso said Monday. “We won for making a big impact on the community in the year we’ve been opened.
“The award is another way to highlight community life in Morgan Hill and how the center is serving as a community hub.”
Mayor Dennis Kennedy praised Balagso’s work.
“Margarita Balagso had a lot to do with our winning this award,” said Kennedy. Balagso said most award-winning centers are recognized after a few years’ activity; Morgan Hill’s center won right out of the gate, after being open only a year.
All Award of Excellence winners automatically compete for the “Creating Community Award of Distinction,” the highest agency award given by CPRS.
Part of the March evening’s entertainment will include a video presentation of the Morgan Hill center and other winning designs. Earlier, a description of the center’s function and photos of its design will be available for conference visitors to see.
Balagso, in the award application, extolled how well the center approached and filled the need for a recreational, cultural and social hub and, especially ‘a sense of place.” The community center opened for business in December 2002.
Before the center’s construction, “recreational classes and activities had to be offered in a local private gym, school facilities and public parks,” Balagso said in her project description.
“We have seen a 300 percent rise in recreational program attendees since the center opened,” Spier told the council last month in announcing the award. She also said revenue from renting the center for private events has increased to the point where it more than covers the cost of operation and is still rising.
The center was the scene of 16 city-sponsored events, Spier said, and many more by organizations and private citizens or businesses.
Playhouse rentals are lagging, however, and Spier and her team are working to boost the venue’s marketing so people know it is not just for theater performances.
Balagso’s application highlighted the broad community participation of the center’s function and design. In fact, resident response caused some major changes after VBN Architects first presented the council with plans, most notably decreasing the size of the largest banquet room and removing a planned theater building from the grounds’ midst.
Instead, the city bought a 1930’s church on the property’s edge and renovated it into the Community Playhouse at Monterey Road and East Fifth Street.
The city’s partnership with Gavilan College was detailed and welcomed by the awards committee. A separate structure to house the college’s satellite campus was built, for which the college pays rent, maintenance and operations costs.
The center is secure, with a well-lit parking lot and security lights throughout the grounds and it is environmentally friendly, Balagso said, with double paned windows, efficient heating and air conditioning and emphatic recycling program.
Councilman Greg Sellers will accept the award for the city at the conference. Planning Director David Bischoff, Spier, Balagso and Recreation Supervisor Therese Lugger will also attend the conference.
The center cost $25 million including $3,225,000 for land purchases.
