Tom Farrens, a representative of Wember, explains Rec Center expansion plans to community members during an open house Wednesday. Molly Breslin, left, worried that the plans gave the climbing gym too much space at the expense of the regular gym. Georgie Stanley and Paul Horton, right, who are both climbers said bigger is better.
Jacksonites are not a monolith when it comes to the forthcoming Rec Center expansion and one its of most high-profile elements: a public climbing gym.
Climbers want to see its square footage grow. But others worry that what’s proposed already is too much.
So after two days of workshops about the expansion and other projects, Parks and Rec Director Steve Ashworth was thinking about compromise.
“I’m not going to make everybody happy,” Ashworth told the News&Guide. “But if everybody feels that they had to compromise equally, I think that is actually a successful plan.”
Draft plans for the expanded Rec Center include a number of amenities aside from the climbing area: a new gymnasium, dry locker rooms separate from the pool, studio space for fitness classes, a gym and raised track on the second floor, new space for meetings and parties, space for a wellness suite staffed by the Teton County Health Department and an outdoor splash pad.
But it was the climbing gym that held supporters’ and critics’ attention during two days of public workshops last week.
Brendan Burns, a mountain guide, thought the space proposed was “decent” but too small.
Molly Breslin, a former Parks and Rec employee and volunteer, thought the climbing area was taking away from more traditional fitness areas.
And Matt Hall, a member of the Teton County Fair Board, thought the space given to the climbing gym was giving community spaces like party rooms short shrift.
Ashworth and other officials involved with the planning pointed to language in the 2019 specific purpose excise tax, or SPET, initiative that voters approved, earmarking $22 million in sales tax revenue for the Rec Center expansion. Facing competing interests, they argued that what’s proposed meets what was outlined on the ballot.
“I do feel that everything that we have in the building now meets that goal,” said Brandon Lucero, a technical coordinator for Perkins and Will, the expansion’s lead architectural firm.
2019 SPET ballot language for Rec Center expansion
In 2019, voters approved a $22 million specific purpose excise tax, or SPET, measure for expanding the Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center. During public workshops Tuesday and Wednesday, officials said they thought what was proposed met the mark. Here’s what the ballot said.
Project name: Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center Expansion and Renovation, Community Climbing Gym, King Street Extension, and Stormwater Treatment.
Ballot read as follows: $22,000,000.00 for designing, planning, engineering, construction, and equipping the renovation and expansion of the Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center. The renovation and expansion includes an additional gymnasium, indoor walking/running track, indoor climbing gym, wellness and fitness opportunities, outdoor aquatics splash pad, general youth-to-senior recreational amenities, associated building infrastructure, King Street extension, storm-water management systems, and associated site parking, multimodal circulation and landscaping. Any unexpended funds, including any unused contingency funds, shall be placed into a designated account, the principal and interest of which shall be used for operations and maintenance of the Teton County/Jackson Recreation Center. This project is sponsored by Teton County.
But that doesn’t mean he and other officials didn’t hear about the public’s wishes. As the Rec Center expansion has gotten underway, the Teton Climbers’ Coalition has advocated for a larger climbing gym than what’s proposed: 10,000 to 12,000 square feet rather than the roughly 7,500 square feet unveiled in last week’s drafts.
Marian Meyers is a member of the Climbers’ Coalition and has also worked on a stakeholder committee about the climbing area. She lauded Parks and Rec for bringing a climbing gym consultant, Entre-prises, on board to help design the space and felt that 7,500 square feet was an improvement.
“That is more than they originally proposed, so we’re thrilled with the fact that it’s going in the right direction,” Meyers said.
But she said she would have liked to see an Entre-prises representative at the workshops and still thought more space was needed based on conversations with other gyms.
“I think you still need the footprint to be larger because you need community space available so the climbers aren’t all on top of each other,” Meyers said.
Ashworth said adding square footage is difficult. Space is limited, and adding more square footage is expensive.
“I only have so much room,” Ashworth said. “And bigger doesn’t always mean better.”
Ashworth said Entre-prises was confident Parks and Rec would be able to build an adequate climbing gym with the space provided.
And he argued that the number of routes would be a better determinant of gym quality than its size.
Meyers said she would be interested in hearing more from Entre-prises when they come to town.
A draft layout for the first floor of the proposed Rec Center expansion that was presented last Tuesday and Wednesday. See the online version of this article for a PDF of Teton County/Jackson Parks and Recreation’s full set of plans.
Lucero said that many of the comments he received during Tuesday and Wednesdays workshops were in line with the Climbers’ Coalition’s ask.
“Most of what we’ve been hearing is that they don’t believe that a climbing wall will be adequate size-wise for the community,” he told the News&Guide.
Paul Horton was among those who attended last week’s workshops, interested in learning more about the climbing wall.
“It’s not going to be as big as I want it to be,” Horton said.
But the former part owner of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides said he wasn’t advocating for a specific square footage.
Rather, he wanted as much space for climbing as possible, especially after three climbing disciplines debuted in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“I think the gyms are going to take off,” Horton said. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.”
Horton suggested that could be done by tweaking the size of the meeting rooms and other spaces.
But Hall, the fair board member, wasn’t on board with that suggestion.
“They need more of the flex space,” he said, referring to meeting rooms and party rooms. The reason, in Hall’s mind, is that the Blue Ribbon Exhibit Hall at the Teton County Fairgrounds will likely go away after its lease expires in December. The Jackson Town Council is eyeing redeveloping the site as affordable housing.
That building hosts a lot of kids parties and quinceañeras, and Hall said he thinks a similar space needs to be set up and affordable.
He proposed turning what’s slated to be a second floor of the climbing gym into more of that space.
Breslin, meanwhile, fretted about the rough proportion of space allocated to the climbing gym versus a traditional gym.
The climbing gym was allocated roughly 7,500 square feet in draft designs. And Breslin said Ashworth told her the second-floor fitness area had been allocated roughly 3,500.
“I think a climbing gym is a fabulous idea,” Breslin said. “But I think that we need to talk about appropriate delineation of space that serves the community’s needs.”
She argued that climbers would benefit from traditional gym equipment but that other members of the community might not use the climbing area.
“The climbing gym has the opportunity to benefit from the rest of the facility quite a bit,” Breslin said. “But many people using the facility and the other venues will not have the opportunity to benefit from the climbing gym. So who are we serving here?”
Georgie Stanley, another climber at last week’s workshops, said she appreciated Breslin’s point.
“I appreciate that the Rec Center is a place where there can be workouts that are more affordable,” she said.
But she still wanted the climbing gym to be well-sized and well-developed. Among other things, she hoped it would have more interesting features than simple vertical walls.
“I have kids, and a vertical wall is great for like 15 minutes, and then the kids are over it,” Stanley said. “It needs to be a good climbing gym with state-of-the-art design.”