L’view breaks ground on new community center

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The band played, students sang, and pretty much the entire school was on hand Friday as ground was broken on the Lincolnview Local School District’s new community center.

The $5 million, 33,000-square-foot facility will feature two basketball/volleyball courts, three batting cages, a fitness center, an athletic training room, a concessions area for the adjacent all-weather track complex, restrooms, storage, and a community meeting room. The cost of equipment will be an additional expense, while the district bus barn will also be renovated as part of the project.

The building could also be used as an alternate site for students in an emergency, as well as space for the school’s robotics program, and for academic laboratories.

Fourth-graders sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to open the ceremony, with the high school band playing the school fight song, and the high school choir performing the school alma mater.

Superintendent Jeff Snyder commended the Lincolnview Local Board of Education, whose five members all attended the groundbreaking, for supporting the project, as well as input from the community on developing a district strategic plan that helped shape the community center idea. While addressing facilities and infrastructure, a suggestion was made that the district should look at building a multipurpose building that students, staff, and community members could use.

“One of the things that kept coming up was youth opportunities,” Snyder said at information meeting held on the then-proposed community center in November 2016. “We expanded the concept to the community as a whole, and this evolved into a community center idea.”

Snyder also said at that meeting that the idea of a Lincolnview “community” arose from the consolidation of several smaller school districts — Hoaglin-Jackson, Middle Point, Van-Del, and York — in 1959. With the construction of the current elementary school in 1997, the district’s schools were all located on just one site, further shaping the Lincolnview community, the superintendent noted.

On Friday, Snyder said the discussion process lasted approximately 1½ years as the board and administration worked on the community center concept and plans were drawn up for the facility. That culminated in Friday’s groundbreaking, as actual construction work began on the project.

“In a short five years we have reached so many milestones, and have reached so many successes throughout our way,” the superintendent said. “We still have areas of growth, but today begins another new chapter in Lincolnview’s proud history.”

Snyder first praised the support of the Lincolnview community for its schools, while adding that the new community center was a way for the schools to give back to the community. When completed in May 2018, the center will be available for free to students, while community members and Lincolnview graduates would be able to use the facility by feeing a nominal fee for an electronic key fob that would give them access to the building.

Snyder said he wants the new center to become a focal point for the community.
“This new building that will soon sit behind me is meant to provide an area for our students in our community to use on a daily basis in so many ways, and, uniquely, the Lancer way,” the superintendent said.

Following the groundbreaking ceremony, students were treated to popsicles.