Three years after a local developer’s proposed $3 million basketball recreation center got the green light, the city of Pittsburg has agreed to pitch in nearly $6 million more to cover rising construction and labor costs for the project.
“This is something that’s really going to add to the community,” Jordan Davis, director of community and economic development, told the council Monday night. “We’re extremely excited about it. I know the City Council is really excited about it, and most importantly, our residents are becoming more and more excited about it.”
In his report, Davis pointed out that a former youth center on Crestview Drive has been closed since the late 1990s, and the Pittsburg Youth Development Center, which offers youth classes and sports, is outdated and is too small to meet the large demands of the growing city.
Dubbed the Discovery Builders Dream Courts, the proposed rec center on West Leland Road would include five high school-sized basketball courts, office and storage space, and 775 square feet of flexible space to be used as a study room or whatever is needed.
“This is going to drive tourism, it’s going to drive sports tourism,” Davis added. “We think that in turn, that’s going to help drive economic development as folks flow in from other areas and other regions of the state to attend tournaments here.”
The city approved Seeno/Discovery Builders’ plan for a 45,000-square-foot youth recreation center in 2020, an agreement contingent on the city’s approval of 1,500 new homes in the city’s southwest hills. The Concord developer agreed to design and build the center at John Henry Johnson Park at a cost not to exceed $3 million, and the city agreed to waive its fees related to its construction, as well as build the necessary infrastructure.
A year later, in February 2021, the agreement was amended to increase Discovery Builder’s cost to $3.25 million. Under the agreement, the developer would retain ownership of the center for the first 10 years after which it would be required to sell it to the city for one dollar.
But in January 2022, the Planning Commission denied Discovery Builders’ design review to build the center, saying it wasn’t consistent with parts of the city’s general plan. The council later overturned the denial, giving the developer the OK to move forward with the rec center — the first public facility of its kind in years.
Davis told the council, however, that in the past two years, construction costs – materials and labor – have increased significantly, with the latest cost estimate for the center roughly $8.5 million, not including contingency funding.
“We toured other facilities and we (city staff and Discovery Builders) have been meeting on a monthly basis – if not more often – to discuss what’s actually going to go into this, and it’s really going to be a state-of-the-art facility and when it’s constructed – the largest indoor recreation facility within this county and one of the biggest within the region — if not the biggest,” Davis said.
Staff suggested the city use $5.75 million of federal American Rescue Grant Act funds it received to close the gap in funding. The amended agreement also specifies that the restrooms would have to be included inside the building.
“We’ve been working very closely with Discovery, and they’re not collecting any administrative fees for reimbursement for their staff time as part of this project,” Davis added. “So while this does have a pretty good price tag, Discovery Builders is providing all their services for processing and doing all this administrative work in kind; they are not requesting that any of the time spent by their staff be reimbursed.”
Once approved, the project could break ground in early September and be completed within a year, Davis said.
The economic development director added that while Discovery Builders’ initial proposal was for $8.5 million, the final plans have yet to be approved and there’s flexibility to modify the project plans to fit the budget. The city will follow the project closely to make sure it stays within budget, he added.
Louis Parsons, president of Discovery Builders, said his company will do everything it can “to meet the budget but also make it as high quality as we can.”
Councilman Jelani Killings said he was in favor of the project and the changes.
“I want to express my continued support overall for the project and the vision of what we’re looking to build,” he said before moving to approve amendments that clarified the budget and the start date for the project.
The council approved the new language in the agreement and the additional funding on a 3-0 vote, with Mayor Shanelle Scales Preston and Councilmember Dionne Adams absent.
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