FAIRFIELD — A $9.6 million community center to be built in the city's new downtown, Village Green, could open just before the city's 50th anniversary at the beginning of 2005.

        But first, voters will be asked to approve in November an income tax reallocation. It would help to build the Village Green Community Center along with an expanded or new Fairfield Justice Center.

        Council is expected to hear a first reading on the ballot issue June 10.

        The community center can be built without the reallocation, said City Manager Art Pizzano. But to build the community center and either add on to the justice center or build a new one, the city must shuffle 0.1 percent of the current tax from the street improvement fund to the general fund. There would be no additional cost to taxpayers.

        Voters approved similar moves in the 1970s and 1990 for sewer and road improvements, said Jim Hanson, city finance director.

        The community center will no longer contain in its title “cultural” as originally proposed. Leaders want to gear the facility more to general community activities, as opposed to focusing on the arts. The center is meant to draw more visitors while helping define Fairfield's downtown.

        “I see it as a gathering place where the community can come together,” said John Lawson, chairman of the Fairfield Cultural Arts Commission.

        A formal vote on the community center will come later this year, but at a recent weekend meeting, council members agreed to build the center in Village Green.

        Plans call for the three-story center, with a basement, to rise next to the city's newest park and library. Live productions and lectures would be held in a theater.

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