Hayward City Council seeks community center

Hayward+City+Council+seeks+community+center

Ian James,
Contributor

Hayward currently has seven community centers that aim to serve its community in a variety of ways: some have basketball gyms, a few have pool tables, but most generally have scattered picnic tables and open halls for private or public events.

A new community center may be added to the mix. Hayward Mayor, Barbara Halliday, along with all six city council members, met July 7 for a regularly scheduled city council meeting to discuss the proposed community project, which could potentially be built on Tennyson and Ruus roads.

The new community center, according to city officials, would cater to an all-age group, which will make it the only one of its kind in Hayward. Existing community centers focus mostly on youth, but the new center would provide employment services, health services, financial stability classes, a new tech center for adults as well as youth, a pediatric center, job training, and services for the homeless.

The specifics of the proposed center have not been finalized. The estimated cost of the project is about $25 million. City Manager Fran David, stated at the July 7 meeting that the funding is about $8 to $10 million away from its goal. Alameda County has contributed $9.6 million and the ACOE has contributed $2.2 million.

Newly appointed President of the Alameda County Board of Education and long time resident of Hayward, Aisha Knowles, said. “I stand here as a product of this fine city and as someone who is continuing to contribute to not only help create better opportunities for youth within Hayward and within the county to ask for your support for the project as well, thank you.”

There are three potential site locations within the Tennyson Park street block, which already contains the Matt Jimenez Community Center, the Eden Youth and Family Center, Tennyson Park and a skate park. Two of the three potential locations are right next to the MJCC and the EYFC.

The third location is in front of the skate park on the corner of Huntwood Avenue and Panjon Street. “This particular zip code has the highest placement of folks leaving incarceration, it is one of the most diverse places in the country, it has super high asthma rates, it has diabetes rates…” said Council member Sara Lamnin. “They are things that are absolutely opportunities for our community and so to have a center and to work with our partners that have so generously stepped forward, to start to address these things and not just survey them.”

There has not been a set date for all this to come together. This is the first big step in the process of building the center and there will be future meetings with the City of Hayward and the stakeholders to develop plans on what’s next.