1) City of Irvine indoor badminton program update 2) visit from Irvine's mayor 3) Bill Barber Gym

[Badminton In Irvine]

Greetings "Badminton in Irvine' supporters:

We have a few announcements and a very important update with regards to the Bill Barber Memorial Park Gym design.

1) City of Irvine indoor badminton program update.

The city indoor badminton program at Irvine High School for next Tuesday (8-29-23) and Thursday (8-31-23) nights are now open for registration at yourirvine.org.

The city is still working with the Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) for the September play schedule.  We will update everyone as soon as the play schedule is available.

2) Meet and greet with Mayor Farrah Khan

Mayor Farrah Khan came to visit the community indoor badminton session on 8-22-23.  Residents had a chance to voice their opinion about the city inaugural indoor badminton program and discuss the future gym design at Bill Barber Memorial Park.  Everyone hopes the gym design will be consistent with the evolving needs of Irvine’s changing demographics and include dedicated badminton courts.

Group picture with Mayor Farrah Khan during the community indoor badminton program at Irvine High School on 8-22-23.

3)  Bill Barber Memorial Park (BBMP) gym design <<< IMPORTANT UPDATE >>>

The city staff is expected to present to the city council the vendor of choice for the design and engineering services for the new gym at BBMP.   They will request the city council to approve the vendor of choice award during the  9-12-23 city council meeting.

We believe the city staff will propose a single-story multi-purpose gym design.  We believe this design does not meet the needs of the badminton community and spending upwards of $40-$60M for a single-story gym is totally irresponsible use of our tax dollars.

We hope everyone can voice their concerns and get this gym design back on track.
Our objective(s):
a) Get the city to build a 2-story gym with an approximately 32K sq ft per floor of gym area (equivalent to 4 outdoor tennis courts).
b) Propose one floor to be dedicated to 16 badminton courts with industry-compliant non-slip mat surface on suspended wood flooring, HVAC, lighting and background paint designed for modern badminton.
c) And suggest the other floor to be dedicated to 4 basketball and/or 6 volleyball courts with their very own sport design requirement.

We believe a 2-story gym meets the test of social and fiscal responsibility.  We believe the return of investment  can easily cover the incremental cost of a 2-story gym.

This will be an important milestone for our "Badminton in Irvine" project.  Please come to Irvine City Hall to support our badminton project.

Here's the link for the presentation I made to the city in June. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10p7Np2IpbKrmPVmgwq5tuCcXsOb1Geou/view?usp=sharing

Please reach out to me if you have any suggestions or questions.  

Thank you and have a good weekend.

Sincerely,

Chan

Volunteer Lead