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Menlo Park is ready to cut the ribbon on its newest community facility. The Arrillaga Family Gymnastics Center will hold a grand opening Friday, May 11.
The gymnastics center joins the gymnasium and recreation center, which were also renovated through developer John Arrillaga’s donations. The new $12 million, 22,500-square-foot facility, located at 800 Alma St., offers young gymnasts a place to train and gives residents another place to take exercise classes.
The grand opening festivities run from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday. After listening to remarks by Mayor Kirsten Keith and City Manager Alex McIntyre, visitors can tour the center, watch demonstrations and join in free family activities.
How wonderful to have another new building in Burgess Park. With the increase in demand for parking spaces, perhaps the next building will be a parking garage for all of the cars that are drawn to this location?
One would hope that the police would be able to increase patrols and gain additional income patrolling and ticketing drivers who do not observe the 3 minute parking limit signs on Laurel.
Will the city employees be parking across the street on the SRI property now? Who will monitor this?
Vintage Menlo Park,
What a despicable comment about a story that is uplifting for a community. A 1st class gymnastics facility that will serve hundreds and thousands of kids during the next 15-20 years. It will enrich the community and raise your property values. But, you choose to bring up your petty, snarky parking issues.
Perhaps you should get out enjoy the sun and experience all wonderful amenities that Menlo Park has to offer.
Hey “Vintage Menlo Park”..
what went wrong in your life that made you completely unable to have joy in your life.. or even a smile… I guess Haters gonna Hate.. and you are certainly a Hater…
I commiserate a bit w/Vintage Menlo because the parking situation there became atrocious pretty quickly. We’re lucky in that we walk there w/nearby family, but it also allows us to see firsthand what a parking nightmare the area has become compared to a few years ago. I think that Vintage Menlo’s focus on the parking isn’t despicable but it is narrow. Those of us who appreciate the previous abundance of parking are a little appalled by how bad it is now – & there should be room to complain about that because it’s a relevant issue.
I loved the great classes I took at the rec center growing up, incl gymnastics, so I’m really happy for all of the kids I know who can take advantage of this great new place. I feel for their parents, though, that have to deal w/the parking issues.
The sad thing is that after Measure T passed, the city hired a consultant and put together three alternative plans for developing the Burgess campus, knowing that construction would occur in (at least) three separate phases as funding became available. Parks & Recreation vetted the plans, taking into account traffic flow, parking, and optimal use of resources.
A lot of time and money was invested in the planning process.
Then, typical Menlo Park, even before the first phase was completed (aquatics center and fields) they totally forgot about all the planning and instead seemed to construct everything on the fly, wherever there was available space at the moment.
A lot of this seemingly haphazard construction occurred at the behest of Arrillaga, who, granted,put some of his own money in the project (but not nearly as much as we, the residents did — and we are still paying for Measure T). That was generous of him, and no doubt the reason the city decided to ignore procedure and allow him to modestly plaster his name all over public facilities.
Anyone seen a bike rack, by the way? Other than the one at the library. Some of us would bike if we could find a safe place to stash our wheels..
The gym is probably wonderful and a great asset but parking IS a big problem. Lots of people go to the library (and now probably the gym) with bunches of kids, so they HAVE to use the car. Parking should have been considered in the planning process.