Play place: $2 million Shawnee Park Center set to open March 28

About 30 children are shooting hoops in the gym.

In another room, a dozen or so grown-ups are laboring on treadmills and lifting weights. Across the way, a handful of toddlers are using tiny fingers to smear paint on brightly colored construction paper.

This is the vision city parks officials have for the new $2 million Shawnee Park Center, a community facility that is intended for use by everyone but especially the residents of south Cape Girardeau.

The center, set to open March 28, is at 835 S. West End Blvd., adjacent to the Shawnee Sports Complex.

"I hope that by the time school lets out that day, we have children crawling all over this place," said Scott Williams, recreation division manager for the city's parks and recreation department. "The big picture is that this is a place for use by the children and the residents of this area."

The city's north end has the Osage Centre, and the Arena Building serves the central part of town. The Shawnee Parks Center is expected to primarily serve the city's south side, an area largely made up of low-income residents.

It has long been a need for Cape Girardeau and one that has been expressed by south-side residents, said Troy Vaughn, a member of the city's parks and recreation advisory board who chaired a subcommittee that helped plan the center.

When city leaders were working on a list to promote a parks and storm-water sales tax in 2007, a south-side community center was clearly a need, said Vaughn, who also is director of recreational services at Southeast Missouri State University.

Meetings were held with south-side residents, who gave the city "an earful," Vaughn said.

"We were told that they wanted a place their children could go," Vaughn said. "They told us they had been waiting 20 years for a place like this, and I don't think they really believed it was going to happen until they saw the bulldozers."

The parks tax passed in 2008, creating a $20 million revenue stream and the planning and construction began on the Shawnee Park Center.

Now, the work is finishing up. On Tuesday, park crews were buffing the floors, putting up the final ceiling tiles and fitting the last pipes in the kitchen. Members of the parks advisory board and their families will take a tour tonight of the 14,541-square-foot building that includes:

* A 6,500-square-foot gym.

* A 870-square-foot fitness room.

* A 720-square-foot activity room.

* A 1,540-square-foot meeting room that can be divided into two rooms.

* A full-service kitchen.

Admission will cost $2 per person, but Williams said the city is working to come up with more funding to increase programs. The city's application for a $74,000 grant was recently rejected. The grant would have paid to hire an assistant program coordinator, tutors, fitness instructors and alternative activity coordinators.

"That would be the Cadillac of community centers, I guess," Williams said. "But we still have some of those goals."

A playground will be built outside this summer, he said, and there will be some programs, such as after-school programs, open and league basketball and volleyball and summer camps. The city recently bought a 14-passenger bus for scheduled summer trips to places like Cape Splash, the Discovery Playhouse and the library, Williams said.

No one knows for certain how many people will go to the center on a regular basis, Williams said. The hours of operation are longer than at the Osage Centre, he said. Its hours are 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.

"We won't really know until we open the doors," he said. "But we hope it's a lot."

Heather Davis has been hired to manage the park center. She said she hopes the community takes advantage of the center and feels pride and ownership in it.

But most of all, she hopes people have fun there.

"We want to give children, especially directly after school, a place to come play in a safe environment," Davis said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

835 West End Blvd., Cape Girardeau, MO