Woodland Hills Rec. Center Improvements to Include New Pool

The Woodland Hills Recreation Center may be getting a new pool.

A pool and bath house—along with the $5 million price tag that comes with them—were the biggest changes in the plans presented at a community meeting Thursday since initial upgrades were presented at a meeting last summer.

At the June meeting, city staff presented plans that included demolition of the center's existing gymnasium and administration building, replacing it gym, multipurpose rooms, an office, kitchen and restrooms. The building would be curved to echo the shape of the surrounding hillside and would have windows on both sides.

The project would also include a new outdoor playground for children, seating, planting, landscaping and irrigation as well as resurfacing and striping of the parking lot. The rest of Shoup Park, where the center is located, would remain mainly how it exists.

Those changes remain in the plans. But where the oddly shaped existing pool and a bath house upgrade were being talked about in June as possible phase two projects, a rectangular pool with room for six to eight 25-yard swim lanes plus a shallow area, a seating/viewing area and a large open space on the pool deck are part of the current plans, which will be brought before the community one more time before the project moves forward.

Planners anticipate having plans prepared by spring of 2014, with construction beginning at the end of that summer, after youth summer programming ends. Expectations are construction will wrap up in 2016.

Calling Shoup Park's "one of the most heavily used recreation centers in the Valley and probably in the city," Adrian Garcia from Councilman Dennis Zine's office called Shoup Park the most used park in the Valley and probably in the city.

"We sat down for the master plan and looked at what a state-of-the-art facility would be," Garcia said of the project.

The total cost of the renovation is a projected $11 million. Of the funding, some  will come from Proposition K (the L.A. for Kids Program) and some will be from money paid to the city by developers, called Quimby funds, to be used strictly to acquire new park land or fund capital improvements at existing recreational and park facilities. Quimby funds get their name from the State Quimby Act (California Government Code 66477) established by the California legislation in 1965.

As of now, Garcia said it looks like securing funding will not be an issue.