Completion date in sight for W.A. Foster
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on March 4, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Goldsboro Parks and Recreation Director Scott Barnard talks about some of the amenities in the new W.A. Foster Center Wednesday, including handicap accessible lockers that feature an additional shelf that will prevent the user from having to bend over too far.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
A crew installs metal and plastic bleachers in the gymnasium of the new W.A. Foster Center Wednesday. The floor must be painted and finished before the gym can be put into use.
The W.A. Foster Center's legacy is not dying.
It is enduring.
Construction on the new W.A. Foster Center in Mina Weil Park is set to be entirely complete by March 28, and Parks and Recreation Director Scott Barnard said the department will waste no time in moving in.
"On March 28, as soon as they hand us the keys, we're going to open up," Barnard said. "We're going to open moments after we get those keys."
Once the new center opens, for the first time in 78 years, the old W.A. Foster Center will sit empty.
Built in 1938, what was formerly named the Leslie Street Community Center was renamed in honor of Walter A. Foster. Foster was born in Lawrenceville, Va., in 1902 and is remembered throughout Wayne County as an educator, church member and civic leader.
Foster was an educator for more than four decades, serving as principal of East End School prior to its closing. He died in 1974.
With his name emblazoned on a community center that the community around Leslie Street funded the construction of themselves, the city is seeking to do what Foster did for many people -- make it better.
There are tributes to the old center that were built in to the new center.
As you walk in the front door, the plaque on the wall is nearly identical to the one at the existing center that commemorates the community center -- same font, same transcription, just a different year.
The gymnasium -- nearly double the size of the one at the old center -- has a vaulted barrel roof, much like the existing center.
And the basketball court in the new gym is regulation size, opening up a world of possibilities for the center, from tournaments to school play, should those ideas ever become feasible.
The court itself is made of maple hardwood, with a layer of wood underneath the court that is basket-woven to give the court cushion and spring.
There is a fitness center, which will have a warm-up area, a universal cable machine and treadmills, and will cost $50 per year to use. This price earns you access to the new W.A. Foster Center fitness room, as well as the fitness room in the Herman Park Center, and enables you to attend all fitness classes provided by the Parks and Recreation Department.
Access to the center's other amenities will be free, though.
The final price tag on the construction of the new building is expected to come in right under $6 million.
Inside, the office of the center leader, Gladys McClary, and the front desk have been strategically positioned to give the staff members full view of the center, and security cameras have been installed and monitors positioned at each desk to give the staff full access to the goings-on inside of the new center.
"It's not a police state, but I want people to know if you come here for the wrong reasons -- smile, you've been photographed," Barnard said.
The new center also fixes a problem with the existing center. Currently, adults and youth have separate times they are allowed in the center due to the lack of separate rooms to mill about in and the dangers that come with mixing adults and children.
In the new center, there are separate rooms for adults and youth, which will allow people of all ages to access the center every hour that it is open.
The location itself is also better, Barnard said.
"Out of the gate, there is no downside to this location," Barnard said. "It's proximity to Carver Heights Elementary is added value -- the proximity to Dillard Middle School is the real reason there's no downside. When kids leave school in the afternoon at Dillard, they can go right, where they know there's a recreation center and people that will take care of them, where they can get a snack and play and be safe, or they can go left, where they go home and maybe nobody is there to look after them or take care of them and bad things could happen because one or both of their parents, depending on if its a single parent or not, could be at work and not coming home until late."
The age groups that come to recreation centers are defined as a "double bump" by Barnard.
Mainly, middle school children come to the centers after school, but then they stop coming around eighth grade, and then they return around age 24 or 25, Barnard said, when they miss having a sense of community and somewhere to go and play.
When considering where to place the new W.A. Foster Center, Barnard said the department pulled bus stop data to make sure they were serving the largest number of children possible.
"We pulled that bus stop data and drew concentric circles that overlapped based on walk times from the bus stop, and this location had the highest proximity we could get to children to make sure we could put the center the closest we possibly could to them," Barnard said.
The new center will also have a room for rental space that will hold roughly 100 people, and is sub-dividable so two separate events can take place at once.
Additionally, there will be a playground and community garden put at the location.
These two things are made possible due to a Parks and Recreation Trust Fund Grant gifted to Goldsboro from the state for the amount of $250,000.
The grant is an equal-match grant, but the city put up the nearly $6 million it was already spending on the center as a match for the grant, meaning no new match will be required.
This will pay for the community garden to be constructed in a lifted area beside the new W.A. Foster Center, and will pay for a modern playground beside the parking lot, picnic shelters, sidewalks, parking and more.
So, in addition to a brand-new multimillion-dollar facility, the children will be getting a state-of-the-art playground, also.
"We're hoping to have the playground completed in August or September of this year," Barnard said. "This playground is insane. It makes the KaBoom! playground look old school. It's a 'no-entry' style playground, which means it's accessible from everywhere. We think everybody is going to be amazed when they see what we've got here."