Last July, the Naperville Park District’s old Barn Recreation Center came down as it was no longer up to code. Now, there’s a new facility in its place.
The Knoch Park Central Maintenance Facility is completed and ready to open. This new 27,000 square foot structure will now house several types of park district staff.
“The emphasis here was to have a centralized hub where we could actually have multiple tasks performed by various different types of divisions that we have,” said Director of Parks with the Naperville Park District, Kevin Finnegan. “We will actually have four different unique groups of staff working out of this facility, from out fleets group, our trades group, our parks group, which maintains our central parks, and then our park police.”
Some other features of the new building include a fueling station, administrative offices and areas for employees to clean up after working outside.
“It’s important as a place for employees to have showers and to have a locker room. They’re out in the dirt, they’re out in the mud, they’re out in the snow, they’re out in the rain, and we didn’t have that before,” said Ray McGury, executive director of the park district.
There are also amenities that the public can enjoy, like an open parking lot, a community meeting room and restrooms just inside the front entrance.
The entire project from deigns to permitting to construction was budgeted at $7.8 million.
“I’m pleased to say we’re bringing the project in just slightly under budget,” said Director of Planning with the Naperville Park District, Eric Shutes. “And as far as a schedule, we started demolition last July, the intent was to open the doors of the facility and have it operational in June of 2017 and we’re here today to say we’re right on schedule.”
And the building includes nods to its predecessor, with the old barn’s cornerstone featured inside and the barn motif kept in mind for the outside design.
The new facility was built to a LEED silver level.
Naperville News 17’s Evan Summers reports.
