Mayor Rob Marlowe
A decade ago, a farsighted city council made the bold decision to replace the city’s aging gym and pool with a 14 million dollar Recreation and Aquatic Center. I’m sure it took a lot of faith to make that sort of investment in the city.
The New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center features not one, but four pools, a double indoor basketball court, a fitness room, a dance room, a game room, and a large meeting room. There are also outdoor tennis courts and a skate park!
The New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center is simply the best recreation center in the county. One of the pools has the best water slide this side of Adventure Island. Another pool is designed especially for young children and features a zero depth entry. Interested in diving? There is a dive pool.
Three of the pools are seasonal, but the fourth one, the lap pool, is heated and is open year round provided that the outside air temp is 60 degrees or higher.
The fitness room has proven to be very popular. As great as the center is now, it is about to get a lot better. The city is currently planning an expansion project for the rec center that will provide, among other things, more room for even more fitness equipment. A recommendation regarding architectural services for the expansion is scheduled for the February 3rd agenda.
There are also classes that you can sign up for at the center. When you visit, be sure to ask for more information on these programs.
If one of your New Years resolutions is to take better care of yourself, you need to get to the New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center at 6630 Van Buren Street before the end of the month and sign up. The rec center staff will be happy to give you a tour so you can see everything before you whip out your check book or credit card. You can also check out the rec center on facebook.
The annual adult membership for a city resident, including tax, is less than $20 a month. Given what is included, the regular price is an amazing bargain. There are also youth, senior, and family memberships available at great prices. From now through January 31st, all annual memberships are available at 20% off.
The Parks and Rec staff also offer quite a few special events in the parks. The next one will be a free showing of Disney’s Maleficient in Sims Park on Saturday, January 24th at 6:15pm. Be sure to bring a blanket to sit on and another one to wrap yourself up in. It should be lots of fun.
Please take advantage of the things our city has to offer.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
The rec center is fabulous. Can non-NPR residents join?
Absolutely. The 20% discount deal through the end of January applies to non-resident memberships too.
I’m not a member at the NPR Rec because:
1) The gym is too small for me to realistically use.
2) You can’t bring guests without paying $7 per visit–$7?
3) The membership is competitive, but not competitive enough for me to carry two gym memberships–so I use the Y.
Maybe if two of those three issues were fixed I’d be on board.
So a New Port Richey resident can pay $552 plus a $75 signup fee ($627 total, plus tax) to be allowed to drive all the way out to the Y in Trinity or they can $160 a year (plus tax) and then pay $7 when they bring a guest to the New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center? Looks like you could invite a lot of guests for the difference, not even counting the amount of gas a gym rat would spend commuting daily to Trinity.
The Trinity Y is nice, but it is certainly not three times as nice.
I saw some preliminary plans for the exercise room expansion yesterday. My guess is that this issue will be taken care of sooner rather than later.
The signup fee was waived and I have a discount as a teacher–it’s $28/month. That’s $336.
So it’s twice the price, yes. But I’ve already said that the NPR gym is basically unusable. Why would I pay less to not use it? The Y lets me bring a guest for free. I bring one about twice a month so that’s an additional $14 savings per month. That brings the “price” to around $14/month if we’re comparing to NPR.
That’s a total of $168 in opportunity cost a year.
The Y is more of a value right now.
If it helps the conscience I have two friends who live in NPR that also use the Y for the same reason(s).
It’s a consumer choice/perception that you have to work to change.