Blue Valley Recreation Center at Hilltop Campus

Since 1986, the Blue Valley Recreation Commission has provided sports and recreation programming to the Kansas City community under the auspices of the Blue Valley School District. In 2012, the Blue Valley School District acquired a foreclosed 125,000 sf facility located on a 51-acre site in Overland Park, Kansas. As a part of a previous Walter P Moore project, a portion of the building was re-purposed as an early childhood center and district conference center in 2014. Building on the momentum of the first project, Walter P Moore assisted the Blue Valley Recreation Commission to achieve its long-time goal of an indoor, multi-court, multi-activity center.

The new facility was designed with a long-span roof joist system enabling a flexible court configuration that accommodates 8 practice basketball courts, 4 tournament basketball courts and 8 volleyball courts. The facility also includes an elevated running track, numerous fitness and dance rooms, a cardio and weight room, a serving kitchen, and district office spaces. The locker rooms and showers also serve as a tornado shelter, designed to the structural standards defined in ICC-500.

An added challenge to the project was preserving and reinforcing a portion of the existing building structure. Approximately 16,000 sf of the existing structure was comprised of a pre-engineered metal building frame. While the height of the existing, single story structure was tall enough to accommodate two stories of space, the existing frame had little additional reserve design capacity. Likewise, the lateral design drift of the existing building frame was not compatible with the programmatic needs of the building. As a result, Walter P Moore designed an elevated structure to serve as a new second floor within the footprint of the existing frame, while isolating the new floor from the existing structure. By preserving the existing building frame, the solution allowed for a more sustainable design and served as an example of prudent construction spending on behalf of the commission.