Lakewood’s Future Plans for closing rec centers were approved by a vote of city council as part of the Imagine Tomorrow plan! These plans are published in detail by the city and are made available by SaveBelmarPark.com at the following link since the AWS hosting provider the city uses has been unreliable of late as widely reported in the national news: https://savebelmarpark.com/download/appendixGreccenters.pdf
Key Facts:
1) The rec centers cost millions of dollars per year to run but only 50% of that cost is recovered by user fees. There is ZERO cost recovery for repairs, maintenance and indirect costs from services provided by the city. (Adopted by city council.)
2) The rec centers also need $42,287,529 of repairs over the next 5 plus 20 years to fix deficiencies identified by consultant firm Bureau Veritas. (Adopted by city council.) 3) The maintenance expenses cited above represent a whopping 47% of the actual replacement cost of the five major rec centers!
3) While the city did consider walkability to parks, walkability to rec centers was NOT considered as part of the Imagine Tomorrow Master Plan. (Derived from the Imagine Tomorrow Master Plan.)
4) Councilors Paul, Shahrezaei, Vincent, Franks, Janssen, Strom, Mayott-Guerrero and Able voted in favor of the plan which includes the proposal of closing multiple rec centers and building a single megacenter at Addenbrooke Park as explained in detail in Appendix G of Imagine Tomorrow. (Public vote records.)
5) Councilors Olver and Springsteen voted NO. Councilor Stewart did not vote.
6) City Council approved the following recommendation: “The city should explore how to reduce the cost burden associated with operating older recreation facilities. One recommendation is to eliminate several centers in the city’s portfolio and replace them with one destination recreation center that provides most of the amenities the community desires in one central location.” (Adopted by city council.)
7) Addenbrooke Park was identified as an ‘ideal’ location for a new mega-rec center to replace the closed rec centers. (Stated in Appendix G and adopted by city council.)
These basic facts are numbered 1 through 7. They are sourced directly from Imagine Tomorrow and Appendix G and from the votes recorded by city council approving the Imagine Tomorrow Master Plan. If anyone states these facts are misinformation, they should specify which fact they disagree with and why. Some sources have mentioned rec centers cannot be closed without funding to do so! While there may be paperwork and procedural formalities, the suggestion that ‘funding’ is needed to close rec centers that lose millions of dollars per year and have way below 50% cost recovery when maintenance expenses are included in projections implies a culture of mismanagement. If rec center guests simply were asked to pay the actual cost of using the rec centers, there would be no talk of closing them unless the public decided rec centers are not a good value. Because rec centers are heavily subsidized over 50% basically as a charity funded by taxpayers, nobody knows whether the public values them enough to pay for the actual cost of using them. The question should be asked whether Lakewood is trading homelessness and housing affordability to subsidize rec centers. Considering rec centers lose millions per year, if cost recovery were simply increased to 100% from user fees, the funds now used to subsidize rec centers could be used to assist homeless persons. Example: Grant or loan $5,000 to homeless persons who are employed but cannot afford the first and last month’s rent plus deposit to lease an apartment. That money would cover last month’s rent plus deposit. The unhoused person would need to pay the first month’s rent. Considering rec centers lose at least $3 million per year, transferring that loss to assist homeless could help transition 600 persons per year into rental housing. (The calculation is simply 3,000,000/5,000.) Lakewood’s point-in-time count of homeless persons found 329 individuals on January 22, 2024. (https://www.denvergazette.com/2025/06/08/lakewood-residents-vexed-over-countys-rising-homelessness-b0bda036-03d2-447f-abfc-38de3dd4a92c/) So housing Lakewood’s homeless might be greatly improved if the rec center tax payer funded subsidies were instead used to get people off the street, out of tents, out of vehicles and into housing! Of course, people wonder what happens if and when rec centers are closed. Will they sit there forever as vacant, rotting unused buildings? Will they be demolished to make way for parks, housing or something else? Yes, it is totally reasonable that the rec center buildings may be demolished if they are closed. However, as of Nov 2025, various Lakewood staff members and council members have denied any plans to date to close or demolish rec centers. Please read Appendix G before you accept the outlandish accusations from staff and councilors that all of this is ‘rumors’ and misinformation. The link below is repeated from the top of the posting and contains the full content of Appendix G: https://savebelmarpark.com/download/appendixGreccenters.pdf
