JCC project creates options

As with many things during the coronavirus pandemic, a renovation project at Jay Community Center dealt with some delays.

The organization finally celebrated its new space last week.

Jay Community Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week for its $70,000 renovation project that converted old restrooms into a multi-purpose space.

Kyle Cook, executive director of the community center, said Monday that the organization’s board started in 2018 to identify upcoming wants and needs.

One of those was to renovate the restrooms that were located just south of the concession stand area into more usable space. (The restrooms were no longer necessary after the 2003 expansion and the construction of the senior center in 2016 both added restrooms to the facility.)

“We decided that we just needed a room that we can use for just anything,” said Cook. “It’s not big enough to make it a specialty room, but we just needed more space. It gives us more functional space. This is probably the last space that we can … repurpose in our facility.”

The renovation of the about 800-square-foot space started in late summer 2020 after some coronavirus-related delays.

It featured removing all of the fixtures from the restrooms and removing a section of a wall to eliminate a hallway. (It was also made redundant by the 2003 expansion.)

The new multi-purpose space that was created got new flooring with a fitness pad underneath to help with shock absorption, mirrors on the south walls, a new sound system and new lights with motion sensors. Cook said he’d like to add a projector to the room as well.

A new sound system and flooring were also added to the room across the hallway to the east that hosts traditional adult fitness classes. And a storage area was renovated.

The project was funded entirely through grants, the bulk of which came in the form of $50,000 from the 2021 NBA All-Star Legacy Grant in connection with the NBA All-Star game that was slated for Indianapolis this year but was moved to Atlanta because of the pandemic. (Indianapolis is now slated to host the game in 2024.)

“It was on our radar,” said Cook of the project. “But it would have been more of a wish list without funding.

“I don’t think we would have done it any time soon. (The 2021 NBA All-Star Legacy Grant) was the driving force for it.”

Additional grant funding in the form of $10,000 each from The Portland Foundation and The Boren Foundation, which provides grants to not-for-profit organizations, covered the rest of the $70,000 project.

The new room — construction was handled by T-N-T Construction of Portland — has not been used much since its completion in October. Coronavirus restrictions limited the types of programming the community center was able to offer.

But, in the last few weeks, it has been utilized for the organization’s summer day camp. It also opens options for boys and girls club activities and to add new programming.

“It’s going to be really nice for day camp and boys club because it’s more of a quiet space,” said Cook. “Not every kid wants to come into the loud gym and do dodgeball or open gym. They can come in here and do legos and crafts, do activities, different things like that.”

The renovation was one of the bigger-ticket items on Jay Community Center’s wish list.

Other recent upgrades at the facility have included new LED lights — those are complete except for a few outside — and new touchless fixtures in the main restroom.

The future wish list includes facility-wide thermostat and public address systems and new flooring in the restroom.