Livonia — Livonia showed off its newly renovated Jack E. Kirksey Livonia Community Recreation Center on Tuesday after millions of dollars in updates, including an expanded fitness area and more spaces for classes and programs, seven years after the city first started planning for the project.
The opening of the overhauled facility — known in the city as “The Rec” — marks the completion of Livonia’s second major construction project within a year at Five Mile Road and Hubbard Street. The city’s new senior center opened last November at the same site.
“We have been thrown into turmoil for two years, we have continued to operate this center and welcome everyone, and our membership numbers have just stayed remarkably strong throughout all this,” said Ted Davis, Livonia’s parks and recreation superintendent, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “And now everyone gets to enjoy the benefits of this center.”
The rec center, which cost $28 million to update, reopened April 27 after a 10-day closure to wrap up the renovation work. The facility stayed open during the rest of the project.
Livonia started planning the rec center’s renovations in 2019, though the process was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
New additions to the now 60,000-square foot space include a fitness area twice the size of the original, two large rooms that provide space for classes and camps, a personal training room and two new wood-floor gyms. There’s also a new meeting room dubbed the Bentley Conference Room, named after the rec center’s location at the site of Livonia’s first high school, with historical photos from the school decorating one wall.
“This is a story about listening. It’s a story about planning ahead. It’s a story about investing in what matters the most in our community,” said Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan. “And that is our people, and the infrastructure that it takes to support those people.”
The Rec was originally built in 2003. To mark the completion of the renovations, the city made bright aqua T-shirts with a bright pink illustration of a person decked out with every kind of sports gear imaginable. Assistant Parks and Recreation Superintendent Michelle Koppin, who was the director of Livonia’s aquatics program in 2003, said the color scheme of the T-Shirts was meant to be a throwback to colors that were popular when the rec center first opened.
Construction on the renovations began in 2024. The project had a final price tag of $28 million. Brosnan said U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens secured $3 million in federal funding for the project, and fellow U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib raised $1.25 million. A handful of state lawmakers got $4.5 million combined, and Wayne County contributed $8 million. Tlaib, state Reps. Stephanie Young and Matt Koleszar, and County Executive Warren Evans were in attendance Tuesday.
“We had a lot of very patient members that stuck with us during this, because every week something else was being moved or adjusted,” Koppin said during a tour of the new additions to the building.
The rec center is adjacent to Livonia’s new 30,000-square foot senior wellness center, which opened late last fall and replaced the former now-shuttered senior center at Five Mile and Farmington. Brosnan said having the two facilities connect to each other is key for making access to both easier for older adults.
jcardi@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Livonia unveils newly renovated Kirksey rec center
Reporting by Julia Cardi, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
