The Round Lake Area Park District turned its vision for a new community center into nine smaller projects that would holistically serve the community. The most significant of these projects, the Sports Center, isn’t a traditional community center. Instead, its main goal is to provide soccer leagues a place to play year-round.
That said, the center offers opportunities for other activities such as volleyball and basketball on courts adjacent to the synthetic-turf soccer field. Three multipurpose classrooms are designed for day-camp activities and evening classes for adults, and a 9,000-square-foot mezzanine above the multipurpose rooms and offices allows for a variety of uses. Future plans for the mezzanine include the addition of a theater, indoor batting cages and adult exercise classes.
To provide the additional spaces and get the most building bang for the buck, the design and construction team used a pre-engineered structural system, which achieved the goals of constructing the building quickly and cost effectively.
The 7.25-acre site borders a heavily wooded area with biking and walking trails that were extended and incorporated into the park district’s land, where outdoor soccer and play fields were added.
