{"id":10574,"date":"2015-05-06T16:23:28","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T20:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10574"},"modified":"2015-05-21T00:13:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T04:13:06","slug":"aurora-officially-opens-loft-youth-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-officially-opens-loft-youth-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora officially opens Loft youth space"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just in time for National Youth Week, the youth of Aurora received a gift that should keep on giving for years to come.<\/p>\n

Saturday marked the grand opening of the new Aurora Youth Centre, located at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Industrial Parkway North.<\/p>\n

Architects, Town representatives, and citizens gathered in front of the new concrete skate park out front of the facility, which was already being used by over a dozen kids.<\/p>\n

Built in 1986, the Leisure Complex closed in November of 2013 for renovations. The facility received a major upgrade for $7 million before opening earlier this year, amid criticism, and criticism followed from users on the finished result.<\/p>\n

But the youth centre, known as The Loft, has received a much more positive response from its users.<\/p>\n

According to Mayor Geoff Dawe, the project was a long time coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it actually started way back in the mid-90s with some visions,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cWe [needed] to offer more to youth. We had fewer people registered in seniors programs, but we had a seniors\u2019 facility. Now we\u2019re correcting that level of service within our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the large-scale skate park, the facility now boasts an indoor climbing wall, a gymnasium, and even a teaching kitchen.<\/p>\n

Council has high hopes for the centre \u2013 and the numbers are already starting to show with a recent increase in membership in the overall facility.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s such a pleasure to now come in here, especially to someone who spent time in the old facility, which was somewhat old and dingy,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cThe changes and strides made here are just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Councillors were also at the unveiling, including Councillors John Abel, Sandra Humfryes, Jeff Thom, Harold Kim, and Tom Mrakas.<\/p>\n

Council hired Aurora\u2019s first youth coordinator in 2000, opening up a youth program initiative that, at the time, the town was starved of. There are now 148 youth programs run by the town throughout the year. <\/p>\n

Prior to the building of the youth centre, these programs were being run out of 19 different facilities in Aurora and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a convenience for our kids,\u201d said Al Downey, Director of Parks and Recreation. \u201cTo be able to provide programming in one location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council approved a \u201cyouth needs analysis\u201d in March of 2011, which identified the steps needed to take to provide the most for the town\u2019s youth. What came out of it was a need for more space for physical activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we heard was a need for a multi-purpose facility in that we were able to simply upgrade some of the areas that we already offered, such as the pool and the rink,\u201d said Mr. Downey.<\/p>\n

Multi-purpose or not, it\u2019s clear that the biggest draw of the facility for youth is the skate park. Its popularity was cemented even before it was built, as Mr. Downey admits that the biggest cheer when they presented to the high schools came upon its announcement.<\/p>\n

And those showing off their moves at the grand opening echoed their sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really got everything you need,\u201d said Shawn Downey, a teenage skateboarder. \u201cLike rails, a bowl, quarterpipes, they did a good job.\u201d
\nDowney\u2019s friend and fellow skateboarder Devon said the bowl was something that he didn\u2019t expect, as you don\u2019t find them at a lot of skateparks. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just in time for National Youth Week, the youth of Aurora received a gift that should keep on giving for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Ky","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-10 09:30:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/2015-05-07-10.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}