No one said it would be easy – and it wasn’t. But barring complications or surprises, within the next 35 to 40 days Discovery Bay officials should be holding the keys to the town’s new community center site.

“Everything’s coming together, and it looks like the transaction should be closing late January, early February,” said General Manager Rick Howard. “We’re good to go.”

But it almost wasn’t. On Sept. 29, the Community Services District (CSD) entered into a 90-day concurrent escrow with the Delta Community Presbyterian Church to purchase the Discovery Bay Athletic Club on Discovery Bay Boulevard. The 10-plus-acre lot is planned to be divided into two parcels: 7 acres and the building to be purchased by the town; the remaining 3 acres to be bought by the church for its school and sanctuary expansion.

But when the town applied to the county for the purchase in September, the lot line configurations drawn were deemed unacceptable to the county due to their lack of compliance with the Subdivision Map Act, which regulates and controls the subdivision of property in California. So the town went back to the drawing board. A new arrangement, featuring a reconfigured lot line but no changes to the town’s and church’s total acreage, was accepted by the county this week.

“We did our due diligence, but what took so long is that we had to have survey work done and bring in engineers to identify what the exact parcel allocation would end up becoming,” said Howard.

In the meantime, in order to meet the deadline and move forward with escrow – which was extended due to the lot line reconfiguration – the sellers (three siblings) were required to re-sign by the agreed-on deadline of Wednesday, Dec. 5 at 1 p.m. A final signature was outstanding after the deadline passed, and the contract was officially terminated. But at the regular CSD meeting that same day, the board agreed to extend the deadline to accommodate the facilitation of the final signature. As of Thursday afternoon, Dec. 6, the third and final signature had been received.

CSD President Chris Steele was pleased with the final outcome, calling it a “good deal for everyone.”

What comes next depends on what the board and community center committee decide, but plans will almost certainly include whether or not to keep the property open as it currently exists while designs and money for the future center are raised.

“The board’s current direction is to operate as an athletic club,” said Howard. “We’ll be sending out an RFP (Request for Proposal) very soon to different potential vendors, and I’ll be contacting members of the athletic club to meet us, talk to us and let us know what they’d like to see us doing with the facility. It’s going to be a long process, but we’re making good progress.”