The Berkley Community Center has undergone updates using grant funding from the state. The city of Berkley currently is gathering feedback from the public on how to update its parks and recreation master plan, which includes future plans for the center.
By: Mike Koury | Woodward Talk | Published September 16, 2025
BERKLEY — The Berkley Community Center and park areas have been receiving updates over the past year, and the city hopes to make more updates in the future.
The Berkley City Council approved a project to improve the Community Center restrooms and make renovations to the concession stand at Community Field #1 at its Aug. 18 meeting. The project costs are $159,515 funded by a state community enhancement grant with work done by Allied Building Services.
Facilities Manager Alex Brown said this grant funding will help the city take care of big-ticket items.
“We put a new roof on, we’ve changed out the entrance doors, done some changes to the main entrance, and we’re going to be doing these bathroom remodels,” he said. “This grant has been super helpful to kind of get the building in good shape. … There’s no more water leaking and we’re going to update the bathroom. So, a lot of the bigger things are being handled by this grant, which has been great until we kind of have a bigger-picture plan of what we want to do overall with that area.”
These updates will be the last updates for the Community Center under this grant funding, according to Brown. The leftover funds will be held for any contingency issues or possibly the installation of heating in the concession stand area and restrooms to make them usable closer to year-round.
At that same meeting, the council also approved an agreement with consultant Johnson Hill Land Ethics Studio for an update to the city’s parks and recreation master plan for an amount up to $15,000.
City Manager Crystal VanVleck said a focus of this update is going to be the Community Center and what residents are looking for in any sort of expansion of the building or programming.
The Community Center and how the city can improve the current building or even replace it has been a hot topic in Berkley. In 2018, a bond was placed on the ballot to fund the construction of a new center, but it was rejected by voters.
Because of the amount of money Berkley has received from the state through its enhancement grants for community center updates, VanVleck doesn’t see a new building as part of the conversation at this moment.
“We also had a facility assessment that showed us that the building is pretty well intact,” she said. “It has some viable years left in it, but I think we also recognize that it’s a pretty small building. It’s very limiting in how much room it provides us for programming and different things. So, that update to that master plan, which will include some public engagement, that’s kind of our next big step as to finding out what the community needs in its Community Center.”
The city held its first public engagement session on Sept. 16, after the Woodward Talk went to press. VanVleck stated that Berkley will hold another public session in October on a date that has yet to be determined. She advised residents to keep an eye on the city’s website, berkleymi.gov, and its social media pages for further updates.
“From (these meetings), we can go and we can look at, OK, let’s just hypothetically say (residents) tell us they want a gymnasium, they want more rooms for different programs … that’s when we can say, ‘OK, we know what the community wants,’ and then we can figure out how to provide that to them and then come back to them with any options,” she said.
Residents also can submit their input in an online survey at surveymonkey.com/r/berkleyparksplan. The survey will be available until Oct. 12.