The city of South Bend is planning a new community center for the southwest side. Residents there have been patiently waiting their turn.
In recent years the city has partnered with the United Way to establish a community center on the southeast side. They plan another one in the former Marquette School building to serve the northwest. And on the west side they’ve renovated the Charles Black Center and built a $25 million MLK Dream Center.
On Tuesday the city’s Board of Public Works will consider acquiring a vacant building on the southwest side, at Indiana and Prairie avenues, that Mayor James Mueller says will complete the system.
”The southwest is an area of town that hasn’t had one, and it’s one in which the neighborhood has been asking us, as part of our planning process," Mueller says.
The building once housed a social club in the neighborhood’s more vibrant Studebaker days. More recently it’s been a couple different night clubs, vacant since a fatal shooting there in 2017.
Mueller says once the board OKs the purchase, the goal is for the city’s redevelopment commission to start funding renovation work next year.
