What's been happening and what happens next?
Here's a recap of what we've done with funds raised and where we are:
- 2009: The Village Green Foundation engaged Adam & Goldsworthy, Inc. to survey the portion of the Village Green where the community center will be located. Miles Yanick & Company were engaged by the Board to complete the schematic drawings by January 2010, Miles facilitated two public meetings in fall 2009.
- These architectural drawings were complete in time for a ‘pre-application’ review by Kitsap County Department of Community Development personnel January 2010.
- There was a public rollout of the architectural drawings and a related site rendering on April 26, 2010, with cake provided by Methia Gordon of Kingston's Sweetlife Cakery, and cookies donated by Kingston's Nicole Matheson of Mirracole Morsels.
- Site preparation work such as soils testing, the traffic impact analysis, and civil engineering are also complete, providing the basis for submission of the Administrative Conditional Use Permit to Kitsap County in fall 2011. The ACUP application has been deemed complete, and discussions with Kitsap County departments about aspects of site development are underway.
- Other Village Green site participants, especially Shelter Resources, Inc (SRI), have been progressing toward building the senior housing apartments at the site in partnership with Martha & Mary. In January 2011 an agreement to sell the property needed for the 35 units of affordable senior housing was concluded between the Martha & Mary/SRI partnership and Kitsap County, and SRI learned that they had cleared the first hurdle to obtain some tax credit funding. They may be breaking ground early in 2012!
- Meantime, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Snohomish County, which intends to help with fundraising for the Boys & Girls Club portion of the building, concluded a capital campaign feasibility study that confirmed the readiness of supporting communities to participate in raising funds for the new club - presently the local Boys & Girls club can only serve a limited number of middle school kids, because that's where there's space available, loaned by the school districct. Boys & Girls Clubs of Snohomish County is aiding the Village Green Foundation to lay the foundation for a 2012 capital campaign.
- We are also actively partnering with Kitsap Regional Library to include fundraising for the new branch library at the Village Green in our capital campaign plans.
Our schematic design work and early fundraising facilitated a well-received grant application to the state Department of Commerce (formerly Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development) Building Community Fund grant in June 2010. In May 2011 we were awarded $1.03 million in reimbursement monies by the Department of Commerce; the dollars will actually be granted when we have raised the rest of the money via the capital campaign on which we are embarking.
We also launched our grant application efforts to private foundations starting in 2011.
Where will the replacement building be located?
The Kingston Village Green Park is located in downtown Kingston within walking distance of the Kingston Ferry terminal. Kitsap County is the parks service provider for the unincorporated Urban Growth Area. The County owns a 10 acre site for the future Kingston Village Green Park that is a reclaimed wastewater treatement site. During a master planning process for the Kingston Village Green Park in 2001, the 3.6 acre Navy Housing property was identified as a critical addition to the park site. The Navy property is surrounded by County owned property on two sides and has road frontage on the other two sides. This is the site that was recently reclaimed using 900 hours of donated labor.
The future Kingston Village Green Park will be the community gathering point of the Kingston community containing ballfields, grass play areas, and play equipment, adjacent to existing tennis courts, a skateboard park, and new walking paths - along with an up-to-date community center.