After years of preparation and anticipation, Northglenn’s new recreation center is inching towards completion and almost ready to serve the city’s residents and surrounding communities.

The new $54.6 million center located at 1 E. Memorial Parkway will open to the public on Oct. 9. It is adjacent to and replaces the old facility that opened in 1975.

Amanda Peterson, the city’s director of parks, recreation and culture department said talks about opening a new facility began two decades earlier.

“We’ve been talking about whether there was a need or desire for a new facility for 20 years as Northglenn has changed a lot since 1975,” Peterson said. “This new facility just better meets the needs of a growing community.”

The new state-of-the-art workout, theater, and community hub is nearly double the size of the former facility and includes an indoor track, recreation pool and water slide and two fitness studios, which were not previously offered.

Despite the gymnasium staying relatively the same size, the area has expanded to allow people to watch a game of basketball or host a pickle ball tournament.

On the south side of the nearly 88,000 square-foot facility, there’s a preschool, indoor playroom and outdoor playground for children. In the past, the child care center has been a mixed-use room and made things extraordinarily difficult for employees and program members.

“Sometimes they’d be used as a preschool and the next hours our employees would have to convert it into a fitness class,” Peterson said. “That wasn’t conducive to either program ... so now we have dedicated areas for both.”

But aside from all the sweat-induced fun on the northern side of the building sits the 335-seat Parsons Theater, named after former Northglenn Mayor and long-time resident Don Parsons.

The theater will be used for large community events such as movies, live-action plays and even live-performances. Peterson said the theater will be used by communities of Northglenn and neighboring residents and promotes a shared-community space.

“We want to be able to compliment one another and be able to say, ‘Hey, Thornton has a gymnastic program and gym and hopefully they will inturn, promote our theater,” she said.

The new 87,887-square-foot facility also includes an outdoor festival lawn for live music ands outdoor movies.

Although talks about a new facility began two decades ago, the ball began rolling in 2017 when the city established a community committee who assessed what residents needed in a recreation facility.

Through this, the decision to add the full-time preschool, addition of an indoor track and removal of racquetball courts all came about.

“They told us what the community wanted out of a new facility and prioritized those needs and were ultimately the ones who said, ‘Yes, this is what we want,’” Peterson said.

After those initial decisions had been made, ground broke on the new facility nearly two years ago. And two weeks from Saturday it will open its doors to the public for the first time.

“All of Northglenn can enjoy and be proud of our new recreation center, senior center and theatre,” said Northglenn Mayor Meredith Leighty.

“It is exciting to add this fantastic new amenity to Northglenn because we have always had a strong sense of community here. This will build on that value.”