The REC of Grapevine
The REC, which stands for Recreation-Education-Community, held their grand opening ceremony on the morning of April 25th. The multigenerational recreation and senior center in Grapevine, TX, combines the new 60,000 SF addition with the upgraded and completely renovated existing Community Activities Center (CAC) facility–resulting in a whopping 108,000 SF center. The REC includes a senior activities area, indoor aquatics, basketball courts, racquetball courts, multipurpose rooms and an expanded fitness area.

MetroCaring Hunger Relief Center
MetroCaring held their grand opening celebration on April 23rd in Denver, CO. At this open house-style event, visitors toured the beautiful new building, witnessing some of MetroCaring’s most wonderful features, which include their Fresh Foods Market, Nutrition Education Center (with a Teaching Kitchen), Rooftop Teaching Garden, the Seeds for Success Greenhouse and the Community Health Services Room. Overall, it was a very powerful and positive experience.

Cheyenne Aquatic Center
The City of Cheyenne, WY, held a grand opening for their Aquatic Center on May 1st. The ribbon cutting ceremony took place in Lions Park where Rick Parish, Parks and Recreation Director, welcomed the crowd and opened the event. The Cheyenne Municipal Pool remodel included new family/assisted changing rooms, renovated locker rooms, an updated customer service entrance, a climbing wall, new staff offices, energy efficiency upgrades and a new addition to the building which includes a play structure, zero-depth entry, new slides and a lazy river.

Excelsior Springs Community Center
Friday, April 24th marked the ground breaking for the Excelsior Springs Community Center¬, which has been a long time in the making! BRS first assisted the Excelsior Springs, MO, community with a study back in 2004. The $14.7 million project is estimated to be completed in May 2016 and will feature a leisure and lap pool, indoor waterslide, weights and fitness area, walk/jog track, community rooms, a senior center, child watch area, gymnasium and racquetball court.

Montrose Community Recreation Center and Fieldhouse
Braving the wind and weather, the citizens of Montrose, CO, came to the site of the Recreation District’s new center to celebrate its groundbreaking on April 24th. It was a memorable occasion for what will be a spectacular facility¬–one which some thought would never see the light of day. With golden shovels in hand, the crowd truly celebrated when the District Board, City and current District Staff began to break ground. The Montrose Community Recreation Center will include an approximately 5,000 SF leisure pool with a waterslide and lazy river, an 11-lane 25 yard x 9 lane 25 meter competition pool, fitness area, a children’s indoor play area and a two-level track.

Steve, Craig, Ken and I headed out to Olathe, Kansas at the beginning of July to celebrate the grand opening of the Olathe Community Center. The building was packed with community members enjoying the dedication ceremony, as well as the chance to tour their new community center. It was very touching to hear speeches by community officials who reminded us all that discussion on this community center had been going on for more than 40 years! What an honor to be a part of the final phase of the process that made this vision come to life!

BRS’s involvement in the project began by winning a national design competition.  The final building is very similar to what we proposed at that time even though we went through quite a few design changes and budget challenges along the way.

The building is completely nestled into its natural surroundings in Stagecoach Park.  It’s so rare that we have 100-year-old trees framing the new buildings!

It was great to see the community already drawn to the warm, inviting spaces that we had imagined within the building.

The community did an excellent job of working with a community-based art consultant to fill the building with meaningful, local art that enhances the entire experience.  One of my favorites is a piece in the lobby commissioned specifically for the community center that is an abstract landscape with a view toward Olathe from the western plains.

Working on the Olathe Community Center has been a great pleasure to all of us here at BRS. We are incredibly excited for all of the new and wonderful memories to be made by those of the Olathe community. We’d also like to acknowledge the other talented members of our team: SFS Architecture, Water Technology, Henderson Engineering, Confluence, SK Design Group, George Butler Associates, and McCown Gordon Construction.

Keith, Craig and I were just out in the Seattle area celebrating the groundbreaking of the Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center. It was great to be able to take a moment to stop and celebrate this milestone with the client team from the City of Sammamish and the YMCA—all of whom have worked so hard alongside us over the past few years during the design process. It also gave us a chance to get acquainted with our general contractor, Porter Brothers Construction, who will be cording the building of all the items we've painstakingly drawn, modeled and coordinated back here in the office. The groundbreaking ceremony, which took place on Thursday, June 12, was a great opportunity to once again see all the community leaders from City Council, the Parks Commission, the YMCA Board and our city staff team. Everyone there was thrilled to see their new center come one step closer to fruition.

Click on the rendering below to learn more about this exciting project!