By The Public Communications Office
In this episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Marketing Coordinator Grace Hallowell and Director of Parks and Recreation Kelsey Heiden discuss the ongoing Recreation Center Feasibility Study and what it means for the community.
Transcript
Grace Hallowell:
What’s Up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined with the director of Parks and Recreation, Kelsey Heiden. Hi, Kelsey.
Kelsey Heiden:
Hi, good morning.
Grace Hallowell:
Good morning. Welcome to the show. This is your first time on What’s Up, College Station. You have joined us relatively recently, so welcome to College Station.
Kelsey Heiden:
Thank you. Thanks so much. I’m glad to be here this morning.
Grace Hallowell:
Yes, we have exciting things always happening in the worlds of Parks and Rec, especially in our city here. And one of those things that we’ve been doing recently is a feasibility study to see if a new rec center is something that we should have in our community.
Kelsey Heiden:
Yes. We are currently doing a feasibility study for a potential recreation center for the city of College Station. And what a feasibility study is, just as it sounds, studying the feasibility of a potential center to be located in the city of College Station. And so we have some consultants working on a study for us that would determine both based on residents’ feedback, market study analysis in the city, and how supported a recreation center would be within the city.
Grace Hallowell:
Yes, a lot of research goes into this. This isn’t like a quick decision.
Kelsey Heiden:
Absolutely. And I am fairly new, as you mentioned, but what I’ve gone and looked back at the history, at least in recent years, and a community recreation center has been a topic for many years in the city. And so finally the city has gone in and is doing a feasibility study to really determine what next steps should be and whether we build one or not.
Grace Hallowell:
So what are some of the moving parts for this study?
Kelsey Heiden:
So we have a few different parts to gather input from residents. We’ve hosted two public meetings in January. We had a great turnout of both those meetings. We also did a few focus group meetings, and then currently we have an online engagement platform. It’s a website dedicated just to the feasibility study where the public can go online and provide live real time input. And they can also comment on other individuals input on various different modules within the platform. So potential location, general ideas, what do they want to see in a recreation center, do they even want a recreation center, and so on. And that’ll be running through March 31st.
Grace Hallowell:
That’s a good point. The commenting on other people’s discussion, it’s kind of like a forum for everybody to share their thoughts and ideas, but we do ask that people keep it respectful and relevant to the topic.
Kelsey Heiden:
Yes, yes, absolutely, always respectful and relevant and we are monitoring to make sure that all comments are within those parameters. But so far we’ve had a lot of engagement and a lot of public input and feedback and it’s been really encouraging to see from a… I’m going to omit that part, but we’ve had a lot of engagement on that platform already. And again, it runs through March. And so we encourage people not only to go on one time, but to continue to go back. Questions will be posted where they can continue to provide input. It’s not just a one-time thing.
Grace Hallowell:
Right, and this is we want it to be what you want. We don’t just want to make something that we want. We want it what everybody who lives here, what they want to meet their needs.
Kelsey Heiden:
Correct. And really the biggest question is do we even need a recreation center? And so in addition to public comment and public feedback, the consultants will also be doing a market analysis to determine all other areas in College Station that individuals can go and get recreation services provided to them.
Grace Hallowell:
So how can people get involved if they want to offer their input? Where can they go?
Kelsey Heiden:
So there was a recent blog on the project where you can learn a lot more information about the feasibility study as a whole, and it also has a link to the online engagement platform. It’s blog.cstx.gov.
Grace Hallowell:
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Kelsey.
Kelsey Heiden:
Sure, thanks for having me.
Grace Hallowell:
You’re welcome. And that’s what’s up.
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