Top 10: L’view’s Community Center No. 2

Editor’s note: The Van Wert independent is doing a series of articles on what it has identified as the top 10 news stories of 2018. The series will run through New Year’s Day and include stories that have generated the most interest from the community and/or involved important local institutions or people. Today’s article features the No. 2 story of the year.

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The No. 2 story of 2018 is Lincolnview’s community center project. Ground was broken in September 2017 on the 33,000-square-foot, $5-million project, which Superintendent Jeff Snyder said was the result of a wish by the district to give back to its community, as well as the recommendation from a strategic planning session involving a number of district residents.

“One of the things that kept coming up was youth opportunities,” Snyder said of the planning session. “We expanded the concept to the community as a whole, and this evolved into a community center idea.”

Prior to coming up with a proposal of their own, school officials toured facilities in the communities of New Bremen, Fort Recovery, Minster, and Celina to get ideas for Lincolnview’s facility.

The result was a multipurpose facility that includes two basketball/volleyball courts, three batting cages, a fitness center, an athletic training center, a concession area for the adjacent all-weather track complex, a community meeting room, restrooms, and storage. The district bus barn was also renovated as part of the project.

Because the district has been frugal over the years, the entire $5 million cost of the project was paid out of the district’s cash reserve fund, which stood at $15.5 million when the project began in the fall of 2017.

The project was completed in August of this year and an open house was held on August 18, which hundreds of Lincolnview residents attended.

While the project was a community effort, two people — Snyder and Treasurer Troy Bowersock — put a lot of work in to make sure the center measured up to what was planned.

In addition to sports and fitness activities, the facility can be used for community activities, which was the case during its grand opening when Lincolnview’s Class of 1968 used the community room for its 50th reunion, as well as student activities. The building can even become a “safe house” for district students if the main school complex is unsafe, or a shelter from inclement weather for athletes and fans of outdoor school sports.

Annual memberships to the center are a nominal $25, mostly to defray the cost of key fobs that allow members access to the facility. The community room can also be rented out for meetings and other types of events.

Tomorrow: The top story of 2018 will be revealed.

Lincolnview students, school board members, and administrators gather to cut the ribbon on the district’s new community center on August 18 of this year. VW independent file photo