City to hold meeting about replacing Bluff Park Community Center with pavilion

The city of Hoover is holding a public involvement meeting this Tuesday concerning a proposal to tear down the Bluff Park Community Center and replace it with a pavilion and new restrooms.

The community center, except for the restrooms, has been closed for about a year because city officials deem it unsafe due to a deteriorating subfloor, City Administrator Allan Rice said. Water was leaking into the foyer and had spread into the subfloor of the main meeting room, he said.

City officials were concerned about putting too much weight on the floor, for fear that it might cave in, Rice said.

The building and adjacent park actually are owned by the Shades Cliff Civic Club and have been leased to the city of Hoover for $10 a year since 1987, Rice said. City officials considered repairing or replacing the whole building, but some officials were concerned about investing a lot of money into a facility the city does not own.

Some adjustments were made to the building last year to give people direct access to the restrooms from outside the building.

The current proposal is to tear the building completely down and replace it with a pavilion, new restrooms and some storage space, but city officials first want to hear the community’s response to that idea, Rice said.

City officials already have talked with the Bluff Park Art Association, which in the past has used the center for the Bluff Park Art Show, and that group’s leaders say a pavilion will meet their needs as long as there is some storage space for some of the items they use each year for the art show, Rice said.

A pavilion is not as much of an investment as a whole new building would be, and the city’s lease on the property probably will outlast the pavilion because the lease was for 99 years, he said.

A rendering of the pavilion will be available at the public involvement meeting, which is scheduled from 6 to 7 p.m. at Shades Crest Baptist Church at 452 Park Ave.

This article was updated at 3:25 p.m. to correct the name of the group that owns the Bluff Park Community Center as the Shades Cliff Civic Club.