Community Center Of Olathe — Local services in Olathe

If you are going to get charged 500 dollars more or less for a single yearly membership, you dont have any need for a municipal owned or municipal financed gym / health club in the first place.. you could already go to well appointed clubs like Lifetime Fitness or Prairie Life Fitness which did not cost taxpayers anything to build. This is what public service does NOT look like. I find the membership fees outrageous. These costs are roughly what a luxury-grade private gym would charge, or that you could find a plan for at a luxury private gym during a regular 'special' promotion.

I am not at all understanding what sort of niche this municipal 'white elephant' was seeking to fill, because its too expensive for the majority of the community, but it offers nothing - except markedly less hours of availability - that you could not already find from a abundance of local privately built and run gyms in this price category.

I think this should be shut down or sold to a private company, unless it can be shown its actually RETURNING significant profits to the general revenue fund, not simply a break even deal or running at a deficit. Taxpayers fund the Olathe parks and recreation, and if you are going to charge a family over 700 a year to use a publicly owned facility, or charge singles around 500 a year, it has no purpose and serves only a select few who did not really need it in the first place, instead of serving the greater community.

Let private companies risk capital to create luxury spa health clubs. What a MUNICIPAL publically owned facility should strive for is a health and wellness facility that people can actually afford to USE, and that helps those who are willing to work on their well being with the opportunities to get and stay healthy at budget friendly community prices. The executives and rich already have their pick of facilities that offer a luxury spa experience, the working class majority needs some affordable options to lose weight, get cardio / heart healthy, and maintain a healthy lifestyle - a 500 dollar entry fee is out of the ballpark for most regular people.

TRCC in overland park is a perfect example of what a well run, prudently managed and wise use of parks and recreation resources can offer to the GENERAL public, which is a $170 yearly cost that gives you access to cardio and weight training and does not try to duplicate a palatial Lifetime Fitness location (or its large costs) while enlarging a engorged costly public agency.

Overland Park did it right, Olathe spent a lot of money for a palace that most cannot afford to use, and can only wistfully glance at like impoverished street urchin chimney sweeps in 19th century london. Considering Olathe has one near sorry looking empty shell of a shopping mall that stands virtually empty, it was in no reasonable position to build this costly palace that no one can use, and it did no one a favor who needed a cheap municipal facility that offered BASIC EXERCISE - not more pools, water slides and resort treatment accessible only for the top 5% of...

The Good:

The facilities are fancy, immaculate, and exactly what you'd expect at a luxury gym in JoCo.

The Bad:

It's a tax-subsidized "Community Center" at the price of a for-profit, private, luxury gym.

In other words, it's not really a "Community Center" at all, since most of the community probably can't afford a membership here. Maybe in Leawood, but not Olathe.

The hours here are really bad. They close early during the week, and extremely early on the weekends.

For such a large building, the weights section is very, very small. For example, there are only 2 barbells in a building that serves a community of 140,000 people.

In the winter, they keep the indoor temperature extremely hot. Miserably hot. They don't have a sauna here, but you won't need one. The entire building is a sauna.

I wish there was the option of choosing a cheaper membership without pool access. Enforcement would probably be impossible, but it really sucks to pay for enormous sections of the building that I'll never use. I just want a clean, up-to-date Community Center where I can maintain my health at a reasonable price.

Tomahawk Ridge Community Center in Overland Park is over $300 cheaper for a family membership ($500 cheaper if you're an OP resident), the hours are better, and the weights section is bigger.

Yes, the facilities here are really nice and glitzed out, but for our needs, this will be our last year as members here.

We'll be making the switch to Tomahawk Ridge as soon as our OCC membership expires at the end...

NEVER, EVER have a party or an event at this place! EVER! Samantha was our "party planner" and she was horrible. We booked our daughter's birthday party here and paid over $200 for a "splash party" where the contract clearly states that we have 45 minutes of party room time immediately followed by an hour an 15 minutes of pool time. Once we went down to the pool, Samantha told us that we were not allowed to get in for another 45 minutes because they had swimming lessons that day. What????? So I paid for a "splash party" and now I'm supposed to have all of these little toddlers in their swimming suits, excited to jump in the water, just sit here for 45 minutes!??? I don't think so. Shame on you Samantha! Horrible customer service and NO apologies. She tried to tell us "I'm pretty sure I mentioned the swim lessons would be going on". Sorry, no you did not! I would have NEVER paid that much for a "splash party" when the kids would only have 30 minutes to swim after sitting there for almost an hour. Samantha even tried to threaten kicking us out, our 83 year old grandma and all. What a joke! I wish I would have read all of these other bad reviews that I'm seeing before I booked the party. It looks like I'm not the only one who has had an...