South Bellevue Community Center — Local services in Bellevue

Rude staff, discriminating place!

I have been to South Bellevue Community Center many times, overall the experience is OK for my activity which is drop-in basketball. I've heard complaints from other people such as dirty fitness room, lack of hours for basketball (Thursday only one court opens up), bias against certain people, etc. But it's the recently horrible experience that happened to me that I decided to give a one star.

When I went to play basketball as usually for the last Saturday, the front desk employee Katelyn said I can't play because the court is full at capacity. I asked how many people were there she said 40 or so and she (and/or another front desk employee) also gave courtesy passes to a few more people earlier when the community center opened, which was roughly 10 or 15 mins earlier than my arrival. I played many times there and even purchased a bulk pass card but this is the first time I was rejected admission. I indeed hear other people who were also rejected and they went to other places such as Issaquah Community Center. I was ready to leave, then I asked if I can take a quick look at the court over the window she said yes. At that point, I saw a man (Caucasian) leaving the court, so I ask her whether I can play now because someone was leaving the building and therefore vacated a spot under their allowed capacity. She immediately declined, with no room for flexibility. I asked her why and she said they were at capacity again. I pointed out again that one person is just leaving and I can take his spot, that’d still be within the capacity. The leaving guy overheard us on his way out and said yes he can take my spot. Katelyn adamantly said no still quoting capacity issue. I asked why you let him in but not me, she said they came in when the community center opening time. I asked her to show me the rules (why coming at opening time has higher privilege) and she couldn’t. I called her unreasonable and she started saying irrelevant things like other people who came late and got rejected all left (without complaint). I disagreed saying that’s different because now someone just left the court and building there should be one more spot allowed. At this time, another front desk employee approved my admission saying I can play, but Katelyn still said no. I said who was in charge there, she said she is because she is in charge of the recreational program and the other employee is just “front desk”. I said but the other employee has admitted me and many other people many times in the past, and that’s inconsistent between the two employees, and what’s said and what’s done. She said I raised my voice and in fact I did, due to anger and frustration, as a paid guest to the community center, and frankly her voice raised as well. She gave me her manager’s business card saying I can contact him and I said I will.

Eventually I was able to play on the basketball court due to my staying on my grounds and discussing with logic. Ironically, when later an employee came down to check my pass card again, it’s the ‘front desk’ employee she claimed, not herself even though she “is in charge of the recreational programs”. This is the horrible frustrating and discriminating experience I had the first time with SBCC and frankly anywhere in a long time. Quite some of my friends also go to Issaquah Community Center which has newer facility including a swimming pool and friendly staff. I hope SBCC can improve as a community center facility and treat people with respect, not with ego problems or...

I liked this place at the beginning as explained below. Before I put them on blast here, I'm going to write them an email with my disappointments, but as far as a rating goes, they went from 5 to three in my book.

The staff maintain a high level of friendly professionalism in that they do great work running programs and the facilities with careful attention to patron happiness. They go above and beyond in little ways like offering healthy recipes in the fitness room, offering new program schedules at the end of the year to help you plan your new fitness activities for the New Year. They promote our community by hiring high school and local college students, training them in professionalism and service to the patrons in the fitness center.

Also the fitness center expectation that you clean your workout space after using is practical and leaves the facilities spotless. It's always a clean environment. Their attention to service leaves me feeling like I've joined a private club. The only thing they're missing is towel service and valet, but I'm not complaining. And I also really like that this is low-key, not the kind of gym you go to and see men and women practically naked because they want to show of their sexy fitness body and grunt while they're working out to call attention to themselves. I've seen enough of that at LA Fitness. I had a membership at LA Fitness for six years. SBCC makes me feel like I wasted six years of membership at LA. Compared to LA, this place blows it out of the fitness...

It's difficult in general to find places to dance/practice in Bellevue. Called twice about coming in to just dance for fun since I'm trying to get back into hip hop and possibly bboying. The person that picked up on the other end was friendly but told me that this place isn't for dancers. They said open gym is family oriented only and due to programs running all the time, there's no room for dancing. They also said it's mainly focused for kids and teens. It's interesting since Tacoma and Puyallup have community centers that are geared towards everyone of all ages and allow cyphering and dancing to go on while classes are running with guidelines we should follow so we don't disrupt anything. There was no indication of when room will be freed up for anyone wanting to host a dance session or if they'll allow me to use up any of their spaces during...