Revamped Glendale Heights Sports Hub ready for unveiling

Bill DePue, Glendale Heights' lead recreation supervisor, looks over the expanded fitness center at the Sports Hub.

Glendale Heights' Sports Hub recreation center has come a long way since it opened its doors in 1978.

With four racquetball courts and a small outdoor swimming pool, it served a village population a third of the size of the 34,000 who live there now.

Only one of the original racquetball court rooms remains today -- it now has a refurbished floor surface and fresh coat of paint on the walls -- but everything else in and around the building has been changed or expanded.

This weekend, Glendale Heights officials will be unveiling the Sports Hub's latest renovations, the culmination of a two-phase, $12 million recreation improvement project for which planning began three years ago.

The recent upgrades include an expanded fitness center, a new indoor children's playground and party room, a larger gymnasium, and additional fitness studios and meeting room space.

It follows the opening of the updated GH2O aquatic park last summer that featured a new drop slide, high and low diving boards, and a FlowRider surf simulator.

The recreation improvements are also one piece of various facility upgrades at the village's civic center campus, including a new police station and senior center.

A grand reopening event for the Sports Hub is planned from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 250 Civic Center Plaza.

"It's going to take us into the future. The village board had a vision to modernize this," said Cecelia Sullivan, the village's director of parks, recreation and facilities. "When you look at it on the plans, it's one thing, but when you see it, it's like, wow, it's here."

Here's a closer look at some of the features of the updated Sports Hub:

• The fitness center, which is partially located in the space of a former racquetball court, features all new equipment including elliptical machines, stationary bikes and free weights. There are also flat-screen TVs with audio hookups for patrons on nearby treadmills.

• The indoor playground was also built in the room once occupied by a racquetball court.

The playground is suited for children ages 3 to 7, and is available for open play and rentals for birthday parties and other events.

• The gym, constructed as an addition to the original building in 1987, was expanded to include a regulation junior high school court. With the existing high school-level court, the gym can now better accommodate the Sports Hub's popular adult and youth basketball leagues, said Bill DePue, the lead recreation supervisor.

Before, recreation staffers would have to remove indoor soccer turf from the adjoining field house building in order to hold more basketball games there, DePue said.

• The second floor was expanded on space that was a portion of the original building's roof. It includes two new fitness studios, which will host a variety of programs including dance, yoga, Pilates, spinning and strength training.

There's now a total of four fitness studios. Three new dance instructors and three new personal trainers have been hired.

• The existing preschool classrooms have new ceiling tiles and cabinetry, and a new outdoor playground and swing set. Officials say the preschool area is better secured from the rest of the building with new entrance and exit doors.

• There's also a new first-floor meeting room for clubs, in the space that had been a boiler room. The building entrance and lobby is new, and new hallways throughout the facility for the first time bring together various parts of the Sports Hub.

"Now it's one solid, unified building," Sullivan said.

The project was funded in part by a $2.5 million state grant. The rest is being paid by borrowing funds through the Build America bonds program.