First look: Health and wellness center taking shape

Jun. 17—URBANA — Construction of the Urbana Park District's new health and wellness center at Prairie Park continues to be on schedule, with Executive Director Tim Bartlett estimating the facility could have a soft opening in October or November.

They would then look to have more of a grand opening in January 2025.

"We're taking advantage of this time in between our brochures, our program guides, so that we can kind of start advertising, get more information and more of a full program schedule," Bartlett said. "But if we're able to open, we'd love to get people in and start getting the staff trained and ready for larger numbers of people visiting and sort of get the bugs worked out of our system."

He added that the district has been "very pleased" with the progress of the $16.1 million building project, which has largely remained on schedule.

Building construction could be complete around late August, Bartlett said. Outdoor landscaping is scheduled to start in mid-August, but this phase could be delayed if the weather is too hot.

There will also be a punch list to check off before parks staff move out of the Brookens Administrative Center and into the health and wellness center.

Bartlett added that the district hopes to follow up the construction of the center with the addition of "Phase 2 outdoor amenities." While funding for such items is "a little less certain," the district hopes to raise funds through the Urbana Parks Foundation.

"Right now, probably the next phase that we're looking at realistically would be trail connections, outdoor playground, sprayground and a skatepark, (these) have sort of been larger, kind of known quantities — sort of things that we don't have that would probably make a big impact in Urbana," he said.