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Curtain to rise Saturday on community center

By SHEELA RAMAN
Published January 12, 2007

DUNEDIN - Starting Saturday, Dunedin residents will no longer have to drive past their new $8-million, 42,600-square-foot recreation center, drooling over it from afar.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, officials will open the biggest building the city has ever built, the Dunedin Community Center at 1920 Pinehurst Road.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the public will be able to tour the facility, which includes indoor and outdoor stages, a mirrored dance studio with flexible floors, a fully equipped fitness center, and a branch library. The tours, part of the opening celebration titled "Leisure Time for Your Lifetime," will run until 5 p.m.

The contents of the center's new library will match the modern setting, said Anne Shepherd, director of the Dunedin Public Library.

"Every book there has a 2006 or newer date," she said.

The branch contains about 3,000 items, Shepherd said, including most of the books on the current New York Times best-seller list, as well as DVDs, audiobooks, digital books, magazines, and newspapers. The library will feature books for both adults and children, with both fiction and nonfiction selections.

It has room to expand to about 5,000 items, Shepherd said, and these might include books requested by library patrons. The library, which includes three computer stations, will function as a full-service branch, staffed by librarians who already work for the Dunedin Public Library.

Hours for the community center's library will be Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 6 p.m. and Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. These could expand or change, Shepherd said, as a result of public feedback.

Ginger Herdman, 52, plans to take advantage of other parts of the center when she visits the new library, she said.

"I could go down and work out and bring my book back and then get another book out," she said.

Herdman is especially excited about the new library because it is about 10 minutes closer to her home at 5 Island Park Place, near the Dunedin Causeway, and she normally goes to the library once a week, she said.

Classes to be offered at the community center will range from fine arts to dance and martial arts and will feature teachers with lengthy resumes. One dance instructor, Elizabeth Featherstone, has studied with the Atlanta Ballet, the Milwaukee Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet. Sensei Sheri, the martial arts instructor, is a fifth-degree black belt and two-time national champion in the women's lightweight division.

"We think the community center will be really busy," Shepherd, said. "We might contribute to the class enrollment or vice versa. People can pick up reading materials while they're waiting for a class."

Residents will be able to fantasize about their future hobbies as they tour the center Saturday because the rooms will be set up as they are intended to be used, said Peg Cummings, interim leisure services director. The children's room will have a faux birthday party set up, complete with treats. The dance studio will feature a sampling of classes, and the fitness center will have staff on hand to explain how different pieces of equipment work.

Cummings said the four-hour celebration will also feature catering, music, and commemorative giveaways.

"It will be a proud day for Dunedin," she said. "And the center will be a source of pride for this community for many years to come."

Times staff writer Sheela Raman can be reached at sraman@sptimes.com or 727 445-4158.

[Last modified January 11, 2007, 22:09:08]