A recent meeting in a small room at the Redmond Area Park and Recreation District’s activity center was regularly interrupted by pops and thuds of racquetballs hitting the other side of the wall.

The timing couldn’t have been better because consultants were explaining the need for a new, larger facility.

A new Redmond recreation center could feature multiple basketball courts, a leisure pool and elevated running track. It would be a big change from the two buildings totaling 8,000 square feet on SW Canal Boulevard that RAPRD moved into in 2012.

A draft proposal for a community recreation center costing more than $30 million was announced Nov. 15 at the meeting before a small audience at the current activity center, one of several meetings held so far on the proposed facility. The building used now would be dwarfed by the new facility, which is estimated at 65,000 square feet, though that could change depending on whether features are added or taken away.

“It is still in a draft form,” said RAPRD Executive Director Katie Hammer. “It will probably change in the next month or so.”

Consultants who are designing the project said three areas are being considered for the new recreation center, which would require approval of residents of the recreation district that 43,391 people. One is on 11 acres next to the Cascade Aquatic Center, which RAPRD leases for $1 a year from the Redmond School District, another is on 10 acres already owned by RAPRD on SW 35th Street near the intersection with Highway 126.

The third proposal was on a smaller 5½-acre site in an undetermined downtown location.

“We can fit parking and a building with some sort of landscaping, but it’s very tight,” said Tom Diehl, project consultant with Colorado-based GreenPlay LLC, said of a downtown site.

The site near the existing swim center would allow for shared parking with nearby Redmond High. But it would mean the school district’s bus barn would be torn down. It could be built on the 35th Street site if a land swap between RAPRD and the school district can be approved.

“Let’s just say there’s probably some obstructions with that,” Diehl said.

The new designs include room for future expansion, eventually including a new competitive swimming pool. But current plans call for the existing Cascade Swim Center to be used in the near future.

“It’s getting older in years,” Jim Kalvelage of Portland-based Opsis Architecture said of the swim center. “At some point, you might consider replacing it and building it contiguous to the community recreation center.”

The new recreation center is expected to include a leisure pool, which could include a lazy river, small lap pool and water slide.

Among the other features of the new recreation center would be a gymnasium featuring two basketball courts. It would also have a fitness studio and exercise classrooms that can be divided into smaller rooms, a workout room featuring cardio equipment and a childcare area with an indoor playground.

Diehl said it makes sense to also include an elevated walking track and rock-climbing wall, which would bring the price of the facility to just over $32 million.

While concerns have been raised about the facility competing with private programs, Diehl said it would benefit those programs by acting as a feeder system.

“You’re not going to teach every level of Taekwondo; you’re going to teach entry-level Taekwondo,” he said.

Consultants estimated operations would cost the new recreation center about $1.35 million annually, with $677,562 being recovered in user fees and the rest falling on district taxpayers. The 50 percent cost recovery is similar to what RAPRD’s current buildings generate.

RAPRD’s board is expected to have a workshop meeting about the plans within the next four weeks and give recommendations on moving forward, Hammer said.

Attendee Bill Dahl asked officials to move the process in getting an RAPRD bond approved as quickly as possible, since area residents could also be asked to vote on paying for a school district bond of more than $75 million next year.

“I don’t want anything to overshadow the vision Katie and her team have,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-548-2186, gfolsom@redmondspokesman.com