Residents will soon have a chance to weigh in on the design of a new community center at Houghton Park in north Long Beach. City officials say the project, which may include preserving historical aspects of the facility, is expected to cost about $10 million.
-Staff Writer-
In the early 1920s, heirs of Col. Sherman Otis Houghton, a famed landowner and early American pioneer who was elected to the United States Congress after serving in the Civil War, donated three acres of a family farm to the City to build a park in north Long Beach.
At Atlantic Avenue and Harding Street, Houghton Park was built as a “park of the people,” with recreational programs, baseball fields and a “clubhouse,” said north Long Beach historian and realtor Sue Vanzant.
Today, the park still teems with activity, but the more than 80-year-old clubhouse, now called the Houghton Park Community Center, at 6301 Myrtle Ave., has been left in disrepair and is in need of an upgrade, she said.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” Vanzant said, adding that north Long Beach now has a population of more than 90,000 people. “[The community center] is so well used, but the City has not well maintained it. So, in order to serve the citizens better, we’re trying to build a new clubhouse.”
Last month, a project to rebuild the community center moved forward as the Long Beach City Council awarded a $1.3-million contract to Culver City-based Studio Pali Fekete (SPF) Architects, the firm selected to solicit public input and design the new center.
At the Long Beach City Council meeting on Sept. 23, 9th District Councilmember Rex Richardson said his office and the selected firm would start reaching out to the community for input on the design at neighborhood meetings.
Ted Williams, a spokesperson for Richardson’s office, said in a phone interview with the Signal Tribune that community outreach would begin, at the latest, by November.
Throughout the decades, Houghton Park, located next to Jordan High School, has served as a site for sports, family picnics and cultural events while the community center is utilized year-round for neighborhood meetings and youth, adult and senior programs.
In the 1950s, additions were made to the community center, including the construction of a multi-purpose room, offices and an outside patio while a building for seniors was added in the 1980s, said Vanzant, a member of the Grant Neighborhood Association and a 49-year resident of north Long Beach who is helping the City research the center’s history.
Throughout the years, however, the community center has been left unmaintained and the facility’s roof has deteriorated, she said, adding that the center no longer meets the needs of the community.
Staff notes that past studies and inspection of the center have concluded that, in order to better meet the needs of the community, “a full replacement” of the center is “preferred” rather than a renovation.
However, some community members hope to save “historical aspects” of the clubhouse, Vanzant said, adding that the original building was constructed prior to the 1933 earthquake after which Jordan High School was built. However, she said additions that were formed in the ’50s and ’80s would likely have to be demolished.
“Some would like to keep the original parts,” Vanzant said. “The rest of it would really have to go. It could be built with a floor plan that would better serve all the different activities that [the City has].”
She noted that a few features of 1920s-era architecture, including “trusses” above the stage, still remain in the auditorium hall.
A copy of the original grant deed provided by Vanzant states that Stanley Houghton— the son of Col. Sherman Otis Houghton and Eliza Donner Houghton, a relative of the Donner Party (a group of American pioneers who were trapped, snowbound, in the Sierra Nevada mountains)— and his wife Dove donated the land to the City in 1924.
Williams said it’s not clear whether the project will include a “complete tear-down or a renovation” of the community center, however he said all residents, including Jordan High School students over the age of 14, will have a chance to interject on the project design during neighborhood meetings in the next month to create a “vision” for the new facility. He said residents have already begun collecting historical artifacts of the site.
“I think there’s going to be a handful of ideas of how [community members] want to go about constructing the new community center,” Williams said. “We’re going to invite residents to be in a position to weigh in on this. We want to be able to capture the history, but, again, we want it to match some of the things we have there.”
According to the staff report, the entire project, including design, environmental studies and construction, is expected to cost $10 million, however funds for the construction phase have “not yet been identified,” city staff notes.
“It is recommended to move forward with designing a similar-sized building, with shared spaces that can be programmed in a variety of ways and transformed easily into spaces of varying size,” the staff report states. “The final design will need to efficiently house staff and support services, improve site safety and sustainably provide for the needs of the community.”
According to city staff, the selected architect will work with the City’s project team and solicit community input, as well as “validate and adjust the recommended project budget and schedule through all phases of the design and regulatory permitting processes.”
Williams noted that the City is also planning a groundbreaking ceremony in coming weeks to launch construction of the new North Library, which is being built in place of the historic Atlantic Theatre that was demolished earlier this year. The $16-million library project is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete, according to city staff.
