City of Taylor to build new recreation center

TAYLOR, Texas - Taylor City Council is considering building a new indoor wellness and recreational facility. It's still in the beginning stages of a study that would outline the project.

"Out of all my classes, the senior classes are the ones that have more people in them," said April Green, a fitness instructor. "It’s a little compacted. It can get a little loud at times because of the sound, so I think a bigger space would be really great."

A bigger space could be on its way.

"I am very excited, I am very excited," said Tyler Bybee, the director of parks and recreation in Taylor. "I think it’s been a long time coming."

Taylor City Council is working with an architecture firm to figure out the logistics of building a new facility.

"That all kind of ties back together," said Bybee. "Once you have the location, then what the size of that could be, you can start plugging in the things the community wants in a center, whether it’s fitness, meeting rooms, basketball courts, volleyball court, stuff like that."

The rough draft of the project will cost more than $180,000, but the city is pulling that money from the Samsung Quality of Life Funds.

"There was 150 that go to local charities and 150 that go to the city for quality of life projects," said Bybee.

It could take seven months to know what a new recreational facility would look like.

"We need nicer equipment, nice sound equipment, weights, so, that way we can do the classes," said Green.

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The city doesn’t know how it would fund the new building, but it’s approached taxpayers about it before. 

In 2010, voters declined to approve it in a bond election.

In 2016, the city said the community identified it as a need in the Parks Master Plan development.

This time around, they're hoping to get more public input.

"My hope is that whatever the community wants to see, we can build that and grow into that as the community grows," said Bybee.

Public input will come from surveys posted on the city’s website.

The city also plans to host a couple of town halls.