project overview

The Beginnings

Over the past twenty years there have been many leaders of our community who have attempted to bring a recreation center to the Cocalico School District to combat juvenile delinquency, create affordable recreation opportunities, and promote community wellness. Most of these attempts came to a standstill in their planning stages. It’s no secret over that time that there has been increasing recreational demands placed on our community. So when it came to creating the Strategic Comprehensive Plan for the Cocalico Region in 2002, sure enough the issue reappeared...

Design, build and operate a Regional community/ recreation center that is centrally located and offers programs for all age groups, but has physically-separated facilities for seniors. The center may serve as a Regional hub, or campus, and may include the following programs, facilities and services:

Taking this strategic objective a group of local entrepreneurs rallied together and began to put substance to the prior efforts. With a vision of a multi-component concept of delivering leisure services, this group assembled partnerships to address the objective’s needs. Over the next four years, this group coordinated the development of an organized feasibility study group of thirty individuals and elected officials from the community.

Service Area

The primary market for the planned community center would be the residents of the Cocalico School District and the Ephrata Area School District and peripheral communities, but most comprehensive centers serve a much broader population base than the area created by the artificial boundaries of the school districts.

2000 Population 2005 Population 2010 Population
CSD/EASD 51,914 53,966 58,896
Primary Service Area 73,950 77,310 80,500
Secondary Area 164,503 172,064 182,426

Source: U.S. Census Bureasu, Population Division, Interim State Population Projections,
2005 Lancaster County Planning Commission, Cohort-Component Methodology

Center of the Community and a Golden Opportunity

The Feasibility Committee identified the community needed a center that could offer programs for the entire family, a center of the community. A place where Mom can take an aerobics class, while Tommy works on his hook-shot; while Dad and Sarah are at the library doing research for Sarah’s school report; and at the same time Grandma is leaving a pottery class at the Senior Center and is heading for an exercise class in the therapy pool. A facility that would truly be a center of the community.

Based on this scope, the Committee identified three existing organizations that are currently providing services that improve the quality of life in the community as partners in this project they are the Adamstown Library, Cocalico Senior Association and the Ephrata Recreation Center. Each of these groups has a proven history and has been providing services in the community 10, 16 and 55 years respectively.

With these partnerships the Feasibility Committee designed a facility that would occupy a fifteen plus acre site on a major though fare that would house:

Recreation Center
44,000 sq. ft. Recreation Center with a gymnasium, leisure pool, therapy pool, fitness and cardiovascular studio, exercise space, locker rooms, offices, and child care.

Library
11,500 sq. ft. Library with a general collection area, children’s collection, computer areas, and processing areas.

Senior Center
5,100 sq. ft. Senior Center with a reception room and several activity rooms.

Multi-Use Space
10,000 sq. ft. Multi-Use Space consisting of multi-purpose rooms with folding walls, kitchen, rest rooms, game room, vending area, storage, and a vestibule which can be utilized by all three entities on a scheduled basis.

Cocalico Community Center Layout

While these plans were being refined, a golden opportunity for the purchase of a building and land that was ideal for the scope of this project became available. The parcel is a twenty acre lot with a 50,000 sq. ft. building, that can be transformed into a community center and it is located at 1975 North Reading Road(former Four Season Produce). The Committee approached the four participating municipalities to discuss the possibility of the local governments purchasing this land as their commitment to the project. The plan was so compelling that the group convinced them to jointly purchase the property for this project. East Cocalico led the efforts by purchasing the 20 acre property on June 1, 2006. This brought the creation of the Cocalico Community Center one step further.