Kroc Center Will be Gift for Generations

Before it is complete, the community center will occupy 8 acres and also will include a 25-acre nature park that the city of Salem will build.

(SALEM) - People who live in the Salem area were given an amazing gift Monday. That gift will come in the form of a new community center and it will be one with few rivals, according to Randy Curtis with the Salvation Army.

"We're worked on this for almost two years now, and it's a great day for Salem and the Mid-Willamette Valley to have the community center being approved and built here."

The grant for the project is from the Kroc Foundation. Ray Kroc found the McDonald's chain of restaurants. The Salvation Army says $50 million will be committed, and the Kroc Center is expected to be completed in 2008.

It's more than a feather in the cap for city leaders like Salem Mayor Janet Taylor, When you're doing positive things like that, that really make your city more vibrant, it's just the most wonderful time to be a part of the community and a part where you're making a difference, you're helping in some small way."

One of Salem`s most driven political activists, retired businessman Dick Withnell, says the scope of the project is all-encompassing, "The boy's club will be involved, the 'Y' will be involved, there are a lot of other agencies that will be involved, so it's a real winner, it really is."

Salem Chamber of Commerce Director Mike McLaren puts it like this, "It's just phenomenal, it really is the epitome of what`s possible when people come together and make great things happen, it is a gift for generations to come."

Before it is complete, the community center will occupy 8 acres and also will include a 25-acre nature park that the city of Salem will build.

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Comments

Comments are Closed on this story.

K May 3, 2006 8:08 pm (Pacific time)

The Croc Center is a great idea and I'm glad to see that it might actually become possible. I'm absolutely discussed with the fact that our community can't and won't seem to support the waterpolo players and high school swimmers in Salem. During swim season 5 out of the six high schools were all sharing Olinger. Thats embarrasing. For waterpolo you its against the rules to touch the bottom but with the pools that we have in Salem, we don't have much choice. The pools in Salem also are preventing our waterpolo athelets to improve. The Croc center won't be getting the grant because they won't be having the gymnastics gym in it like they were required to. The Kroc center is a GREAT idea but if its going to happen it better have a pool made for waterpolo not only a lap pool, we have YMCA and the courthouse for that, and not a lap pool that the bottom highers and lowers but a permanent bottom that is good enough for waterpolo. The whole point of the Kroc center is to get more teens involved with sports to keep them out of trouble. That goal is no longer being looked at.

Thomas D. Morgan May 2, 2006 8:36 pm (Pacific time)

Excellent story and video! I look forward to seeing this completed. It will be good for Salem, a city that my father grew up in before me.

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Kroc Center Will be Gift for Generations

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