Trail funds shifted to community center

Turning over its share of the Legacy Trail construction to the Town of Truckee has given the recreation and park district extra funding to invest in the planned community center.

On Tuesday, the Nevada County board of supervisors approved shifting $65,000 from a Proposition 40 grant for the Legacy Trail to the Community Recreation Center.

“Initially it was going to fund construction of a soft-surface portion of the trail,” said Nevada County Supervisor Ted Owens. “But since [the trail] went to the town to be paved, that changed the numbers and added a maintenance component.”

The county had allocated the grant funding to the Truckee Donner Recreation and Park District in 2005 for the Legacy Trail’s third phase from Riverview Sports Park to Glenshire, according to a letter Owens wrote to his fellow supervisors.

Following a decision by the Truckee Town Council last spring to pave the Legacy Trail, with a parallel unpaved path, the recreation and park district turned the trail over to the town in June.

Afterward, the recreation and park district asked the county to reallocate the funds toward the community center and gymnasium planned for a 13.5-acre triangular parcel bordered by Donner Pass Road, Interstate 80 and Highway 89 north, according to Owens’ memorandum.

Supervisors unanimously approved the transfer Tuesday after the state previously authorized the change in how the Proposition 40 funding can be used, Owens said.

Phase one of the new center is expected to be completed by fall 2009, according to a letter from recreation and park district General Manager Steve Randall. The first phase will include a 22,200-square-foot gymnasium with an elevated running track, an 18,000-square-foot community facility, classrooms, a kitchen and baby-sitting facilities.

Ground work began this year, Randall said, and should resume in the spring, with building construction going out to bid as well.

“We don’t know exactly how much it will cost, because we still have to go out to bid, but the architect’s estimate was about $22 million,” Randall said of the community center’s first phase.

Other funding The district will also sell $25 million in bonds on the open market, and use mitigation fees and other grants to pay for the new center, according to a district document. Mitigation fees, charged to new residential construction in the district, will increase substantially over the next two years, said Executive Director Pat Davison of the Contractors Association of Truckee Tahoe. Originally proposed to go from $0.40 per square foot to a $7,598 flat fee per residential unit, Davison said the district is considering modifying the mitigation fees after her association raised some concerns. “It was a large increase when the market is slowing,” Davison said. Instead of the large flat fee, the district has proposed a new fee of $2.22 per square foot, which would be phased in from 2008 to 2009, Davison said. Those changes will go before the district board on Dec. 13, said recreation and park district General Manager Steve Randall.