Jackson stakeholders celebrate start of community center

A groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday in Jackson marked the end of a long wait to begin building a community center.

City officials, leaders of a not-for-profit group donating money for the center's construction, architects and local business owners gathered at midday on East Deerwood Drive near Whitey Herzog Stadium, where the community center is planned to be completed over the next year.

The more than 23,000-square-foot facility will be one story and hold a 1,990-person capacity safe room/gymnasium, a banquet hall that can be converted into meeting rooms, a catering kitchen, community space with display areas, a community meeting/conference room, a coffee bar and concessions area, a mixed use/common area, office space and restrooms.

The majority of the construction cost is being covered by a donation from Southeast Missouri Medical Center Inc., a community-based group originally formed to bring doctors to the Jackson area. In recent years, the group has used health-care investments to channel money to public projects.

Construction was delayed for the approval of a federal grant that will go toward making the center's gym a Federal Emergency Management Agency safe room capable of withstanding an EF-5 tornado.

The community center has been in the city's 10-year plan for some time, and the ground on which it will be built was secured more than a decade ago through a donation from Bobby and Jane and Ron and Marcia Clark. But it wasn't until Southeast Missouri Medical Center stepped up with a $3 million donation that the center seemed like a possibility. Approval by voters helped, too.

In 2012, Jackson voters passed a quarter-cent sales tax that will fund the center's operation when it is completed. A portion of revenue from the tax also is planned to be used for maintenance and improvements in city parks.

Jackson Mayor Barbara Lohr acknowledged the wait Wednesday and how the city ended up missing using the center for some purposes.

"It has been a long process," she said during the ceremony. "Now, when we first started thinking about this, we had hoped that we would be able to have a lot of our bicentennial activities in here. That didn't work. But I guarantee you that when this thing is built, it will be busy, and we will have a lot of activities, and it will just be a happening place."

Steve Elefson, president of Southeast Missouri Medical Center Inc., told those who attended the ceremony about the history of the organization, starting with $180,000 in seed money raised from Jackson residents in 1969, how the group built and sold Jackson Manor nursing home and later through other property investments ended up with the money to donate for projects.

This is an artist rendering of the Jackson Community Center.

"This most likely will be our last project, because we will be out of funds and out of energy," Elefson said. "But we are so excited to see this thing through."

Brockmiller Construction Inc. of Farmington, Missouri, was chosen by the Jackson Board of Aldermen in September as the main contractor on the project.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent address:

381 E. Deerwood Drive, Jackson, MO