WESTMINSTER : Bigger Banquet Room at Center Endorsed

City officials have endorsed a plan to double the size of the banquet room in the proposed community center, despite uncertainty about how to pay for the work.

Acting as the Redevelopment Agency, the City Council voted unanimously this week to spend $6,300 for new architectural designs that would increase the banquet room’s seating capacity to 400.

The community center is part of a $7-million project that includes the construction of a park on 3.8 acres to be bought from the Westminster Elementary School District. The project also would involve improvements to the 15th Street apartments across from City Hall.

City officials hope to finance the project with a $5.3-million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, money from the Redevelopment Agency and a city reserve fund for Civic Center improvements.

But the $420,000 expansion of the banquet room would take space allocated for the park, which officials say is crucial in obtaining the HUD loan.

The loan would be an advance of community development block grants that the city expects to receive from HUD over the next five years. The city hopes to repay the loan over 10 years.

Block grants are intended to improve neighborhoods and to provide jobs and affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families.

HUD turned down the city’s $5.3-million request because the community center was not eligible for block grant money.

But John Hjelm, the city’s housing and grants coordinator, said that an amended application was submitted to HUD this week requesting $2.9 million to pay for the land, build the park and renovate the 15th Street apartments.