While Alton Park residents want the city to reopen a neighborhood recreation center, a local official said the building is in bad condition and the city doesn’t have the resources to repair it.

“When you can look through the wall on one side of the building and see another room, you know you’ve got serious problems,” Paul Page, the city’s director of general services, said of the Alton Park Recreation Center on 45th Street.

Some residents “think an ounce of putty will make it work but it won’t,” he said.

The building also has water on the floor, and a side wall that supports the building’s ceiling contains holes, Mr. Page said.

“It could mean some real serious consequences for someone to go in there without having it structurally analyzed and structurally rebuilt,” he said.

Nathaniel Craigmiles, vice president of the nonprofit Chattanooga Community Council that includes about 100 residents from neighborhoods throughout the city, said Alton Park badly needs a recreation center.

“We want recreation for children in the Southside, especially since all the problems with violence and with people hanging on the street,” he said.

The center, also known as the 45th Street gym, closed in 2002, weeks after the South Chattanooga Recreation Center opened on West 40th Street.

The South Chattanooga Recreation Center is about 2.3 miles away from children who live in Emma Wheeler Homes public housing development site. The 45th Street gym is about 1.2 miles from the development.

Chattanooga Community Council representatives are asking the city to give the recreation center to their organization so they can offer GED classes, social services and recreation programs.

Council members said they aren’t asking the city for money to reopen the center because they plan to raise it themselves, although they do not know how much it will cost to repair and reopen the facility.

Members of the Christian and Muslim communities are willing to make donations, said Mahmood Abdullah, president of the Chattanooga Community Council.

Council officials also visited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development field office in Knoxville this month seeking financial support to reopen the gym.

“We would help them if we could, but they’re going to have to go through the competitive system to get the funds,” said Mark Brezina, director of the HUD field office in Knoxville. “They would have to go through the city to get community development block grant funds.”

City Councilman Manny Rico, who represents the Alton Park area, said he doubts the neighborhood group can get the funds needed to repair the building, which also contains asbestos that must be removed.

Chattanooga Community Council members presented their case for the building to the City Council earlier this month. The council listened to the presentation but took no action.

Meanwhile, Mr. Page said a private company that would create jobs is interested in the property.

Bunge Edible Oils Corp. representatives have expressed interest in the 45th Street site, according to correspondence from the council.

Mr. Page would not confirm that Bunge is the company interested in the site, and an official with the company did not return a call for comment.

The city must get a private deed on the property before it can sell the land. The family that gave the land to the city must sign off before the city can sell it, Mr. Page said.

Comments