Recreational center offers something for everyone

Finding time for recreation and exercise can be difficult when one must balance work, family and other responsibilities with a few laps around the swimming pool or an aerobics workout.

But what if harried parents can find temporary pre-school care for their toddlers or after-school supervision for teenagers at the same place they work out? And how about seniors socializing with others – rather than sitting home alone – while their adult children pump iron or play recreational basketball in the same building? Such arrangements eliminate the need to hire a baby-sitter, shuttle children around town or find someone to watch over a frail elderly person.

Park Place, a multi-faceted family recreation center in Streamwood, Ill., hopes to be the answer for these families as well as other busy people who want to make efficient use of their recreational time.

The $8 million center, financed through bond sales approved by voters in 1994, boasts full exercise and locker facilities, a six-lane lap pool, an activity pool with slides and flumes; senior, teen and pre-school centers, meeting rooms, outdoor terraces and sundeck, an indoor playground and a kitchen. The gymnasium features a suspended running track and aerobics studio. The center is open from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.

Individual activities are priced at various levels, and special rates are available for youths, senior citizens and families, including a $400 pass that entitles a family of four to unlimited use of all of the facilities for one year. Rates are higher for people who do not reside in Streamwood, a suburban Chicago village of 34,500 people.

“Our intent was to be able to allow the entire family, from the senior citizen to the tiniest tot, to be able to come to one site where there is something for everybody,” says Rick Pyle, Streamwood’s director of parks and recreation. Operating costs, projected to be $750,000 per year, will be funded by user fees, which Pyle says were sufficient in the first year of operation, which ended April 1.

Totaling 65,000 square feet, the two-story facility is constructed of face brick and split block with a standing seam metal roof. MTI Construction Services, Des Plaines, Ill., built the center, which was designed by Sente & Rubel Architects, Northbrook, Ill.

Pyle says citizen input and survey results made it clear to Streamwood Park District officials that such a facility was needed.

“The residents of Streamwood have welcomed the recreational center with open arms,” he says. “It has allowed us to double our program offerings.”