St. Charles park commissioners contemplating rec center referendum

St. Charles residents might get the chance to vote on building a new community recreation center at a cost of between $23 million and $27 million in April.

St. Charles Park District commissioners spent the past year exploring the need for a new facility and the proper timing to asking local taxpayers for more money.

"We've been having meetings with the public and in our ad hoc committee to listen to the community about what the amenities of the center should like," said Holly Cabel, the district's director. "And we've made sure to do a financial feasibility study to ensure the stability of it operationally."

The new recreation center would be constructed on open space in James Breen Community Park. The space needed for the building would consume two practice fields currently used for football, lacrosse, soccer and other sports. Commissioners are debating the value of adding the cost of creating new turf fields to host those and other sports as well as more cash to replenish the fund the district keeps to purchase and preserve open space.

Cabel said the recreation center is the focus of the potential referendum.

"Right now the district does not currently have a large amount of gym space," Cabel said. "It has one gym."

The new recreation center would address that shortage as well as bring a new fitness center option to taxpayers. The facility would also have an indoor track, basketball and volleyball courts and a sand volleyball court. Cabel said the fitness center was the No. 1 requested new amenity in the park district by taxpayers in a 2013 community survey. The gymnasium and indoor track were also near the top of the most wanted list.

Getting public approval for a $27 million tax increase may be an uphill battle during a down economy. That said, voters approved 10 of 14 referendum questions placed on the most recent November ballot by various park districts in Illinois. A $27 million referendum would be the largest amount request by a local taxing body that deals in open space and recreation since the $30 million request by the Kane County Forest Preserve District in 2011. That request was successful as was the last tax increase referendum the St. Charles Park District put on the ballot. That question was a $25 million tax increase in 2008 for land and money to build an aquatics complex.

Voters in Glen Ellyn rejected a $13.5 million tax increase request last month that would have paid for a new indoor aquatics facility.

Local taxing bodies have until Jan. 20 to place a binding referendum on the April 2015 ballot. If St. Charles park commissioners don't decide by then, they'll have to wait until 2016 before their next chance at putting a tax increase question on the ballot.