Residents from Adams County who use the 40-year-old Northglenn Recreation Center agree that the time has come for the city to expand and modernize the 40,000 square foot facility and attached D.L. Parsons Theatre.
“I think they need a bigger space here,” said Ken Franch, a youth basketball coach who has lived in the city more than 25 years. “The gym should be bigger, and they definitely need bleachers. I don’t know how old it is, but it’s aged. It could use a more modern look.”
On a recent afternoon, people filtered in and out of the recreation center at 11801 Community Center Drive for dance classes, free swim and back-to-back club basketball games. Parents filled the row of folding chairs set up along the sideline of the court, and extra spectators stood packed on the wheelchair ramp that leads into the gymnasium from the small workout space behind the rec center’s front desk.
“I just started working out here about a month ago,” said Ines Segura, a resident of Federal Heights. “The workout room is basically a small landing in the entryway. An indoor walking track like you see at newer rec centers would be great.”
Jeremy and Kendra Macnicol have lived in Northglenn for about six years. The previous night, they attended a musical play at the D.L. Parsons Theatre, the city’s 300-seat auditorium on the second level of the recreation center.
“It was crazy just trying to get into the theater,” Kendra Macnicol said. “Most people there were elderly and they had to push their way in. If the programs are that popular, why not expand it to meet that demand?”
“I would certainly be in favor of a bigger theater,” Jeremy Macnicol said. “I acted here two years ago in ‘Inspecting Carol’ and I feel like it could use more seating. A separate theater would be even better.”
And that’s all in line with what city planners in Northglenn have heard from residents over the last year and half of public outreach efforts to find out what kinds of things people in the city want to see improved. That input from residents has been considered as officials design a plan for a new, integrated Civic Center Campus that, in its earliest stages, propose a new recreation center, a separate theater space and a new city hall building.
“From the community feedback we’ve received so far, people seem by and large excited for the opportunity to have a new rec center and theater,” said Brook Svoboda, Northglenn’s director of planning and development. “I think it’s really more about waiting what the next phase of analysis shows as far as a path forward to that coming to fruition.”
Since July 2015, the city has been looking at detailed land use scenarios and road capacity studies that have helped to create a vision for a 21-acre site that includes the existing recreation center/theater building, and the municipal building at 11701 Community Center Drive, which was built in 1981. That facility houses the courts, City Hall, city offices and the entire police department on two floors that total 36,000 square feet.
— one in 1985 and another in the early 2000s. Northglenn is already moving along with , but the question remains on how to approach the rest of the city’s civic needs.
Planners have grappled with the best way to address those community needs over the past several years, and through that process, city officials said that a rare and valuable opportunity to create a more inviting and functional heart of the community was presented.
“We’re trying to create a sense of place that incorporates all of those elements in our new Civic Center Campus,” Svoboda said. “So we’re trying to find a balance between what the market will support versus what the community expectations are versus maintaining our civic uses and really trying to create a cohesive plan that really reflects all of those key attributes.”
The city created a website,, that presents its conceptual plans for constructing three new buildings for the recreation center, theater and City Hall that are all connected to each other and surrounding places like the Webster Lake Promenade shopping center, E.B. Rains Jr. Memorial Park and the new SCL Health Community Hospital on the southeast corner of Community Center Drive and 120th Avenue through open city parks, festival spaces and plazas.
So far, other land uses on the site could include more retail space, apartments and even a hotel.
On Dec. 21, the city council will review a final land use that, if they approve, will give planners the green light to move forward and on to a fiscal and market analysis of the site.
“We’re looking at a phasing plan in terms of how we’re going to build this and keep things open at the same time,” Svoboda said. “We’re also looking at private considerations to help provide equity to building public infrastructure, and trying to find the ones that will yield the most bang for the buck, and those which one will help benefit the overall project in terms of fit.”
In 2008, a new recreation facility on the campus site by a slim margin.
“We took that previous effort and incorporated this effort,” Svoboda said. “We want to make sure that we’re engaging the community and bringing them along in this process so that they understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”
A public engagement process will start next year to continue to gather ideas for the new facilities.
“I think more people will get involved here too if it’s modernized,” Kendra Macnicol said. “I feel like because the rec center has been here for so long, there’s this stigma that it can’t be as cool as other recreation centers … but there’s a lot of potential there for it to be something special.”