East Lansing Hannah Community Center celebrates 10 years, looks toward future
From left, East Lansing Councilmember Kevin Beard, Mayor Diane Goddeeris, Haley Shumaker, 6, and Hannah Community Center Coordinator Elaine Hardy Wednesday at Hannah Community Center. Community members celebrated Hannah Community Center’s 10th anniversary with a cake cutting ceremony.
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About 17 residents and city officials gathered Wednesday evening to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Hannah Community Center, reflecting on the building’s past and looking forward to its future.
East Lansing Mayor Diane Goddeeris and other officials said the Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road, has strengthened East Lansing as a community — she said more than 100,000 people visited the center last year.
“This building really exemplifies what a community can do together,” she said.
The building currently features a gymnasium, a swimming pool and fitness facility and a 483-seat theater, according to a press release.
Goddeeris, Councilmember Kevin Beard and City Manager George Lahanas helped cut a green and white frosted cake decorated with a picture of the community center Wednesday.
East Lansing residents Brandy and Matt Shumaker brought their two children along to the ceremony, and said their family plans on becoming members of the center soon to use its athletic facilities, such as the basketball courts in the gymnasium.
“We wanted the opportunity to kind of celebrate (and) look at the facilities,” Brandy Shumaker said.
Goddeeris said the building’s versatility has served it well across time, allowing it to host events ranging from the yearly East Lansing Film Festival to receptions for the city’s police department.
The building itself has a history stretched across decades.
It opened in 1927 as the first high school in the city before it was converted into a middle school in the late 1960s, said Elaine Hardy, the community center’s coordinator.
After ceasing school operations in 1997, the city purchased the building that same year for $150,000.
When it came time for East Lansing residents to vote on a $7.5 million proposal in November 1998 to turn the building into a community center, it passed overwhelmingly, said Tim McCaffrey, East Lansing’s parks, recreation and arts director.
After renovations, McCaffrey said the actual cost of construction was about $10 million — grants and donations from the community increased funding for the project.
More renovations might be in store in the future, Hardy said.
The city hopes to renovate the facility’s third floor, which Hardy said has changed little from the days before the building was a community center.
“It looks almost exactly like it did when it was a middle school,” she said.
McCaffrey said ideally, the center’s future use will expand upon its current versatility.
“The types of improvements would be consistent with the … intent of the community,” he said.
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Commentary
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Eliot Singer
(02/02/12 1:06pm)Report
Isn’t that precious: a photo op.
So should we talk about budget. In East Lansing, land of photo op and hype, we should always talk budget.
For FY 2009-2010 (last actual numbers, which are more accurate than projections), Hannah Guest Services ran about a $90,000 operating deficit, Hannah Swim Pool ran about a $50,000 deficit, and there is an item for Hannah Building at $525,000 expense with no revenue. None of this includes the bonds for Hannah, which at least were voted on by taxpayers, unlike the boondoggle bonds for parking structures, the DPW, and development projects.
The celebrated soccer complex ran about a $46,000 operating deficit but the softball complex ran about a $24,000 surplus.
Of course, the theater in Hannah is essentially unused, while the city (and MSU) are still pushing the $8.5 million in borrowed money performing arts theater in the City Center II boondoggle (not gonna happen).
I’m not opposed to taxpayer subsidized recreation programs and voted for the Hannah bonds. My problem is with feel good government with no sense of the bottom line. The Hannah swimming/gym are a great deal for citizens, but the city has been downright incompetent in its promotion (this is actually worth promoting, unlike all the silliness that they promote that blows up in their faces when it falls apart). If the Hannah theater cannot be rented out, then community theater and music groups ought to be allowed to use it for free. (The city is willing to give away the store for the CC II performing arts theater on the pretext it will bring in visitors, but small scale, volunteer, community arts groups do this stuff for nothing. But I forget, city government hates grassroots activists and loves developers.)
East Lansing is in deep fiscal doo doo, and not just because of those nasty people in state government. Staton’s boondoggles are costing more than Snyder’s cuts or future cuts. And there is a lot of stuff in the budget that needs to be prioritized when it comes to budget cuts and efficiency. Feel good and hype and ribbon cutting no longer hack it.
Alice Dreger
(02/03/12 5:37pm)Report
I’m a member of the community center (I use the workout room and pool regularly) and am very happy to have it, but I also am wondering why the State News would run this story without noting the deficit issue. Hannah is costing EL taxpayers a lot of money every year, and it seems odd that the SN editor doesn’t know that and/or doesn’t mention the sustainability problem in an article about a 10 year anniversary.