Boys |amp| Girls Clubs to build new facility in Smith Park

Boys & Girls Club of Springfield has been helping kids build better lives for 38 years. Starting next spring, Boys & Girls Club will begin a different kind of construction a 39,000-square-foot facility in Smith Park, according to Boys & Girls Club Executive Director Bill Stalnaker. The facility will replace the organization's Kynion Unit, at Fremont and Division streets.

The new facility will be named the Stalnaker Unit, a request made by a do-nor who gave $1 million toward the project.

"It's probably the greatest honor that's ever happened to me," said Stalnaker, who has been executive director of Boys & Girls Club of Springfield for 16 years.

Construction on the $4 million project is expected to begin March 1, and Stal-naker said that the new facility could be open by the end of the year. Fund-raising efforts for the project already have yielded $3.3 million for the new building, which will be located on the southwest side of Smith Park, which fronts Fre-mont.

To accomplish this, the Springfield-Greene County Park Board is trading 1.2 acres on the east side of the park for 1.2 acres on the west side of the park, which is held by the National Guard Armory, according to Dan Kinney, director of the Springfield-Greene County Park Board.

According to Stalnaker, before a firm date for groundbreaking can be set, several federal agencies must sign off on the land transfer.

The new building will feature a technology center and a learning center, both staffed by full-time teachers, rooms for dance, music and art activities, a gymnasium, heated indoor pool, game area and a large kitchen and dining area. The Stalnaker Unit project is the first Boys & Girls Club construction project since the 1998 renovation of the Musgrave Unit, which included $250,000 in improvements to the baseball complex at that location.

Boys & Girls Club of Springfield serves 5,000 kids every year, Stalnaker said, with the goal to use after-school re-creation activities to get the kids on the road to a larger goal education. "We really want to focus on education," he said.

"They can come down and shoot baskets, but if they don't have goals and focus, they're not going to be the kind of people we want them to be."

Boys & Girls Club of Springfield also feeds 87,000 meals a year to kids who participate in its programs, Stalnaker said.

Ron Slone, president of Slone Arch-itects, the firm designing the Smith Park building, said that the new facility will live up to the Boys & Girls Club's focus on education. "It's a challenge, because we have to make the interior spaces colorful, exciting and functional, but be-cause they are going to be used by kids for years, very durable," he said. "We're going to use elements such as ceiling height, special lighting and flooring choices to inspire their imagination."

The fact that the building will be located in a park is a plus, according to Slone. "We're fortunate to be able to put this facility in the park, because we have the use of all the external amenities," he said. "That's a real blessing."

Slone said that working on a project that will help so many kids is personally edifying. "We're not building a country club," he said. "We're building a place for these kids to learn and play."

The partnership between Boys & Girls Club and Springfield-Greene County Park Board has been important in making the new facility a reality. "We have common goals," Slone said. "You couldn't ask for a better partner than the Springfield-Greene County Park Board."

According to Kinney, Boys & Girls Club first approached the Park Board more than a year ago to discuss the possibility of the new building being located in Smith Park. "We felt that Smith Park lent itself well to this facility," Kinney said. "We're having an influx of kids in that area who might have nowhere to go after school who will have an invitation to use this facility."

Kinney said that the Smith Park location is in just the right part of Springfield to reach kids who could benefit from Boys & Girls Club activities but are not using those services. "Both the park and the community benefits, and we're glad to be a part of it," he said.

Boys & Girls Club's $1.7 million a year budget comes from United Way contributions and private donations, ac-cording to Stalnaker. "The United Way is our major donor, the rest comes from the community," he said.

But giving is a two-way street when it comes to the Boys & Girls Club experience, Stalnaker said. Springfield kids who participate in Boys & Girls Club ac-tivities return about 7,000 hours of ser-vice to the community each year, Stal-naker said.

According to Stalnaker, the next few years will likely see more Boys & Girls Club construction for improvements to existing Boys & Girls Club facilities. Renovations are planned at the Musgrave Unit, which will add 6,000 square feet to that facility, and at the Henderson Unit, which will add 7,000 square feet to that location, Stalnaker said.

"They just need an opportunity," Stalnaker said of the kids who will use the new Stalnaker Unit. "You open the door, you help them step through, then they'll make the rest happen on their own."