Laguna Beach eyes expanded offerings at Community and Recreation Center

Laguna Beach is looking to expand the offerings available at its Community and Recreation Center.

Located in South Laguna, at 30516 South Coast Highway, the former St. Catherine of Siena school site was acquired from the Diocese of Orange two years ago. Four buildings that include a dozen classrooms, a chapel, a gymnasium and what was once a library make up a total of 39,500 square feet of indoor space.

Since April 2023, the facility has been open to the public. An interim use plan update presented to the City Council on March 11 explored how the community could get further use out of the property in the future.

Limited on-site parking, amounting to just 42 spaces, remained a “primary barrier to further growth and accessibility,” Gwen McNallan, vice chair of the city’s recreation committee, wrote in comments that were submitted for consideration.

The recreation committee supported plans to add 65 additional parking spaces, as well as the conversion of existing art space into an art studio and the creation of a public fitness center.

Tierney Doran, a recreation supervisor, said the city would like to “deck out the art room,” making it available on a drop-in basis for members of the public and local artists.

“We’ve got a lot of great resources there,” said Doran, who mentioned the art room came with a kiln. “We’d like to find ways that are more passive use, instead of just the scheduled recreation programs, to get people in there through the door.”

City staffers presented concepts for overflow parking and a potential fitness center.

A portion of the grass field on the property would be converted into the additional parking spaces.

“The grass field area has not been as popular as we would have thought with the younger sports user groups,” said Alexis Braun, the city’s recreation manager. “This site could still accommodate large meetings and groups, as well as continue the recreation program, and not have to cancel one or the other to be able to accommodate.”

Staff proposed to convert the grass field to a gravel lot for program participants.

“To use it on an every day, regular basis, the grass would deteriorate real quick and become muddy,” said Tom Perez, the city engineer. “It just is not set for the vehicle traffic.”

As for the fitness center, Braun said three connected classrooms could be repurposed for exercises such those that are for cardio and strength, as well as others. The council directed staff to come back with options to compare a city-run fitness center to a public-private partnership.

“It’s always good to look at those potentials, but it’s going to drive up the cost because you’re going to have an operator looking to make a profit,” Councilman Bob Whalen said of a public-private partnership. “They’ve got to fund the cost of all these machines, and then they’re going to want to make money because they’re paying a lease payment. They’re in the business of making money.

“I’m concerned about the cost of it, as opposed to you just show up to the high school and you do some weightlifting. Here, we can provide this service on a very affordable basis...so I’m open to looking at both, but I would want to see comparatives.”

The council also directed staff to pursue the appropriate permitting process to create an artist workspace and convert a portion of the grass field into parking. Staff appropriated $150,000 from the parking and transit fund for the latter item.

A variety of activities have been made possible through the space, including youth gymnastics, ceramics classes, indoor pickleball, drop-in basketball and volleyball, city staff said. Temporary skate ramps were also installed in the courtyard.

As another school year winds down, Doran also took the opportunity to discuss plans for an expansion of summer camp programming.

“We started in 2023 with seven camps that we offered,” Doran said. “Fast forward to this year, we’ve got 43 camps planned on site. Last year, at any given time during the summer, we had at least 60 kids on site just for summer camps, and we still had all of the regular recreation programming happening at that same time.

“To reduce parking constraints on the neighborhood, we did stagger drop-off times for the camps when possible. We also did a drop-off drive-through system.”