Pocatello Community Recreation Center nears grand reopening after $1.3M renovation

POCATELLO — Renovations at the Pocatello Community Recreation Center are nearing completion after a $1.3 million investment from Portneuf Health Trust.

The final touches are being completed at the local community recreation center, which will see the completion of a new 3,200-square-foot weight room along with a variety of other improvements.

“The (weight room) space is beautiful,” Pocatello Parks and Recreation Director Anne Butler said. “We’re currently entering through that back door right now, so patrons really get to see it and enjoy it. Once the rest of the renovation is completed, we’ll go back to our main entrance and you’ll see the old weight room has been renovated into a multipurpose space. The benefit of that now is that a lot of our classes — our dance, yoga, those type of classes — were held in the gym before and so we couldn’t always have someone playing basketball when there were classes.”

Butler continued, “Now we can move those classes into the multi-purpose space. Everyone can lift weights in one space and you can shoot baskets in another and you can enjoy the dance classes. It also gives us a space to rent out for parties and things like that that we didn’t have before.”

The renovations also include general updates like painting and improvements to the parks and recreation offices within the facility. The recreation center is anticipated to serve over 200,000 visitors annually.

A ribbon cutting will be held at noon on Sept. 5 and give an opportunity for the public to explore the site and the various updates.

“We really just want to show off all the work and the pride that’s taking place in this facility,” Butler said. “Then moving forward we’ll just continue to work our programs and make things available for the public. We’re just excited for the opportunity and the partnership with Healthy City USA.”