WARREN — The Warren City School District recreation and wellness center under construction adjacent to Harding High School will have additions for various extracurricular programs, a medical health area and other improvements.

These also mean increased costs.

The board of education on Monday was updated on the now-136,700-square-foot facility that will cost $36 million for the center and the additions. The building was previously to be 120,000 square feet and cost near $23 million.

Superintendent Steve Chiaro said as part of the overall project there were additions to the planned building made with board approval. He said the additional costs will be fully funded through federal grant monies and the district’s permanent improvement funds.

He said near $16 million is being covered by federal funds and grants, including COVID-19 relief funds.

“Of the remaining balance the board has put away the cash for permanent improvements, and also will look into investment opportunities and bonds. There will be no additional costs to the taxpayers,” Chiaro said.

Chiaro said the new center will replace the former band shelter, which lost its roof in a storm in 2021; feature a medical area for medical partners to rent space at 11,000 square feet; new locker rooms will replace ones from the 1930s; the football stands that began eroding in 2014 will be improved; and there will be new areas for robotics, e-sports and a student-run bistro. The bistro will allow students to earn a hospitality/ management seal.

He said the site preparation includes new stormwater storage tanks.

The locker rooms will be ready by August 2023 and the entire project completed by August 2024.

The project also will include a 200-meter indoor track.

“This is about our kids and the community. We want to have as many points of contact here as possible for students. The dreams and possibilities of this project are endless,” Chiaro said.

John Lacy, district executive director of business operations, said studies done indicated the community wanted a recreation/ wellness center.

“Our complex has become the center of the community. This is the time now to get this project off the ground and get moving,” Lacy said, noting the original east side football stands were completed in 1935 and the band shelter and west side stands in 1961.

The Poggemery Revitalization Study done in 2009 and the We Are Warren Foundation in 2013 both recommended having a centrally located community center.

Chiaro said the school district reduced school buildings in the district from 18 at one time that included neighborhood elementary schools to the current five sites, and in the process lost playgrounds.

Representatives of Phillip Sekanick Architects, project architects, and DeSalvo Construction, contractor, attended the meeting.

“There will not be a facility like this in our whole Valley,” said Joseph DeSalvo of DeSalvo Construction. “This will be an amazing facility. You see facilities like this in Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Pittsburgh.”

Mayor Doug Franklin, among the city officials at the meeting, said the recreation center coincides with the city being focused on improvements in its park system.

“This is history in the making. This is a community project and a huge investment in the future and will affect generations to come. We are glad to be a part of it,” he said.