A decade ago the Fruita Community Center opened its doors to the people of Fruita and, in the years since, has had growth in use and in what the Parks and Recreation Department is able to offer the community.
“I believe it’s been a huge success ever since we moved in,” said Ture Nycum, director of Parks and Recreation. “We served a lot of people, 1.65 million people have come through the doors and paid for a pass, and that doesn’t include people coming and having lunch with the seniors or all the visits to the library.”
The path to getting the Community Center approved was not entirely smooth, Nycum said. The initial vote in April 2008 to approve constructing the facility ended in a tie vote of 1,268 to 1,268, but after tweaking the plan and going back to the voters, it was finally approved later that year.
Over the course of two years, the facility was designed and constructed and, on Jan. 26, 2011, the first guests were welcomed into the facility. Then on Feb. 1, employees began selling passes.
The facility included fitness equipment, basketball courts, an indoor lap and leisure pool, space for older adults to meet and a branch of Mesa County Libraries. Over the years, the Community Center has allowed Fruita Parks and Recreation to expand its programming.
“Having the Rec Center just really opened us up to be able to do a lot of stuff for Parks and Recreation for this community,” Nycum said. “It allowed us to have not only drop-in activities, but we now have spaces where we could do additional programming.”
Nycum said involving older adults and having a library branch brings people in who might not have come for the fitness amenities, but are then encouraged to check out what the rest of the facility offers. Officials were looking to involve people of all ages and interests, Nycum said.
“That whole senior programming has just blossomed and grown tremendously,” Nycum said. “So we’ve been able to offer quite a bit more for activities and just the amenity here of having a full leisure pool. All of that stuff was a game changer for us.”
The project wasn’t just about constructing a new facility, but also incorporated the city’s existing outdoor pool. The pool was constructed in 1965 and needed extensive work to allow it to keep operating.
“At the time, that outdoor pool was definitely on its last legs,” Nycum said. “It was rough. We had flames coming out the sides of the boiler. We actually accepted a hand-me-down boiler from Grand Junction Parks and Rec just to keep it running for a few years.”
With the new Community Center building, the pool was saved and everything except the concrete pool shell was replaced — from plumbing to the concrete deck, Nycum said.
The new indoor pool added to the aquatic features and allows people to swim year-round, which the community’s swimmers have taken advantage of.
“They’re probably some of the first people at the door at 5:30 ready to get in and do their lap swimming,” Nycum said. “Not only that, but with the leisure pool we have families here all the time using the pool.”
Over the last decade, use of the facility has been growing from around 165,000 in 2011 to 190,000 in 2019.
Financially, the project has been doing well, Nycum said, with $8.3 million in pass revenue collected over 10 years and $1.6 million in program revenue.
He said even with the COVID-19 pandemic shutting the facility for nearly two months and limiting the number of people in the facility, they expect to end the year about even.
The final year of the facility’s first decade has been an unprecedented challenge with the pandemic, Recreation Superintendent Tom Casal said, but staff have found ways to get the community involved through modified programs and keeping the facility as open as they can.
“It was a lot of hurdles but all these guys, from aquatics to youth programming to athletics, these guys are just trying to find ways to provide,” Casal said. “We were able to do track and field this summer outside. We were able to do tennis this summer, golf.”
Looking to the next decade, Nycum said they will explore the possibility of expanding the Community Center or adding a satellite facility as usage grows. He said they could look into doing another feasibility study in the coming years.
“We’re just finishing up our Parks, Health, Recreation, Open Space and Trails Master Plan, we call it PHROST,” Nycum said. “Within that, our consultant did some analysis and we’re starting to push capacity here at the rec center. So we’re starting to talk about do we need to expand? How do we expand if we need to expand? What are the things that people are wanting?”
Even as they plan for the future of the Community Center, Nycum said he’s been struck by how much the community has embraced it.
Even some of those who may not have supported the idea more than a decade ago have come around.
“The one thing I’ve found satisfaction in is that a lot of people who may have voted ‘no’ on the Community Center, they’re coming in and using it a lot,” Nycum said.
“There are some people who use it daily who didn’t necessarily support it when it was voted in. So I’ve enjoyed just being able to turn hearts and minds and let the community know what a community center is and what we’re supposed to be about.”
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January 25, 2021 at 02:15PM
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Fruita Community Center turns 10 - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
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