Castle Rock defers vote on 2nd Recreation Center
Town of Castle Rock residents will not be voting on November 5 on the Town’s proposal to build a second recreation center.
At about the same time that CPN started to look at building a Recreation Center in Castle Pines North, the Town of Castle Rock independently started a separate project to investigate whether Castle Rock should build a second recreation center to relieve overcrowding at their existing center, and to have capacity to serve Castle Rock’s growing population.
Castle Rock built their existing center over 10 years ago, when their population was about 9,000. Now that their population exceeds 23,000, the existing center has become overcrowded, and it will not be able to handle the town’s future population, which will exceed 80,000. Castle Rock’s Recreation Department has indicated that if a second center is not built, they will be forced to cut back on recreation programs. They are currently giving preference for many programs to Town of Castle Rock residents, and at some point may restrict non-residents.
Castle Rock’s process for considering the second center has followed many of the same steps that CPN has done in putting together a proposal for a recreation center. Castle Rock had public meetings, conducted a survey of residents, and formed a citizen committee to develop a proposal.
Castle Rock had originally planned to put the issue on the November 5 ballot, however they have now deferred the vote until at least April 2003, because have not yet reached consensus on what to include in the facility. They are debating whether the lap-lane swimming pool should be a standard 25-yard pool as is used for high-school competitions (as is proposed for CPN’s Center), or if they should build a 50-meter “Olympic sized” pool that could be used for large regional or statewide swim meets. They are also debating whether to include an indoor ice arena.
