Boys and Girls Club Gets Ready to Break Ground

could be celebrating the opening of its new home in town as soon as spring of 2012.

“We want to show the people of this area that it is no longer a dream,” said Gary Steinhoff, executive director of the organization. “It is a reality.”

The result of an 18-month capital campaign, the 32,000-square foot bilevel structure set for construction along Lindenwood Avenue t is slated to replace a decades-old edifice on nearby Olive Street. Plans call for a new site that will include a concession area, food court and teen center, as well a weight room and gymnasium in a building more than twice the size of the agency’s present facility. The total cost of the project, including land acquisition, will run about $6.3 million.

Originally, the organization had hoped to break ground on the project late last year, said Terry Ohlms, a board member and cochair of the capital campaign.

“The downturn in the economy kind of put the kibosh on that,” he said, noting that construction could begin by March or April.

The waiting period also allowed time for some minor changes in the design of the swimming pool, which the club will share with . The school’s switch to NCAA’s Division II made alterations necessary for its seating capacity, amount of deck space and size of locker rooms. A 3-meter diving board was also added.

Steinhoff said the project would take 12 to 14 months to complete. Ohlms said a variety of factors will influence the timing.

“It all depends on how soon they start the grading and how fast the construction goes,” he said. “Some of the construction is basically time that’s going to be donated by different labor unions and individuals, so that will be based a little bit on when we can get them in.”

The site is one of two facilities Boys and Girls Club has in St. Charles County, where the agency serves children ages 8-18. Steinhoff said the club will be able to offer a greater array of choices for those using the center.

“A lot of it will be expanding old programs, but we will be able to do some new things,” he said. “We will add a math program to our already successful reading program. We will add a performing arts program, which is something we have never been able to do before, because we just haven’t had the space.”

An increase in attendance is also anticipated. Steinhoff said a 50 percent boost in the 2,000 children who attend across both facilities isn’t out of the question.

“In three to five years that wouldn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “We will have an immediate jump of probably 500 kids in the first year.”

Some of those new enrollees are expected to be on the older end of the organization’s age range, spurred by a teen center on the upper floor where adolescents can watch television, do homework and interact with those in their own peer group.

“It’s hard to keep them coming because they get involved in other things as they get older,” Steinhoff said. “A 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, an 18-year-old doesn’t want to come to the club and trip over a 9-year-old. It’s to give them a club within a club.”

Steinhoff said the look of the new facility will be that of an educational institution.

“Any boys and girls clubs that have been built in the last 10 to 15 years all look and feel more like a school,” he said. “You come in, and you see classrooms and computer labs and learning centers and libraries. We’ll always have our recreation and our sports but the real emphasis at boys and girls clubs is more along the lines of education, social development, character building.”

Both the old and the new site will have access to nearby .

Steinhoff said that about 80 percent of the capital campaign has been completed, but a million dollars or so remains to be raised. Meanwhile, the effort is expected to get a boost from the Oklahoma-based Mabee Foundation. Steinhoff said the paperwork to secure $689,500 in matching funds went in the mail this week.

Though the fundraising hasn’t yet been completed, Steinhoff is confident the final dollars can be raised saying that the steel had been ordered and construction would start this spring.

“We feel our ability to raise that last 20 percent is going to be enhanced when people actually see the building coming out of the ground,” he said.

View more information and blueprints for the new center at http://www.bgc-stc.org/capital-campaign.html.