Town of Aurora, Colorado hosted a grand opening on Tuesday for its model new 77,000-square foot, practically $42 million leisure facility that was funded solely by tax income generated from authorized marijuana gross sales.
Often known as the “Southeast Recreation Heart and Fieldhouse,” the power boasts a slew of facilities, in keeping with native information station KDVR: “A 23,000-square-foot fieldhouse with temperature managed indoor atmosphere; A full-sized subject with professional-grade turf; An 8,000-square-foot multiuse gymnasium [that] will be capable of accommodate one essential basketball court docket, two cross basketball courts, two volleyball courts or three pickleball courts; A 1/9-mile lengthy monitor elevated above the health space {and gymnasium}; A 7,600-square-foot health space with state-of-the-art gear, together with: A purposeful health space; An out of doors health house; A health studio; A big neighborhood room; [and a] natatorium, which in flip is comprised of: A 125,000-gallon swimming pool with a most depth of seven toes; A spa pool with water jets; A leisure pool that features a 25-yard, four-lane lap pool, a lazy river, and a 20-foot-tall waterslide.”
Town broke floor on the power in early 2021, and it’s the second new leisure facility to open in Aurora within the final 4 years.
The opposite rec heart, which opened in 2019, was additionally funded by taxes from marijuana gross sales, according to KDVR. The information outlet Westworld reported that the Aurora Metropolis Council in 2020 “authorised growing the town’s gross sales tax on leisure marijuana from 7.75 % to eight.75 %, with the extra revenues going to fund youth violence prevention initiatives.”
“We’re excited to open our latest recreation heart and fieldhouse,” Brooke Bell, the director of the Aurora Parks, Recreation and Open Area, mentioned in a press release from the town earlier this month. “After an intensive neighborhood engagement course of, the suggestions obtained guided the creation of this distinctive facility; we sit up for the neighborhood having fun with the house they helped envision for years to return.”
Within the press launch, the town said that the Southeast Recreation Heart is situated “close to a number of neighborhoods and the Aurora Reservoir,” and that “the middle is a regional vacation spot boasting the primary indoor fieldhouse throughout the metropolis along with quite a lot of different facilities and breathtaking views of the Colorado mountains.”
The development of the 2 leisure amenities in Aurora function “proof of idea” for advocates who helped Colorado turn into one of many first two states to legalize leisure hashish somewhat greater than a decade in the past when voters there authorised Modification 64.
Supporters of marijuana legalization have lengthy contended {that a} regulated hashish retail market may very well be an financial boon for state and native governments.
“Colorado did what nobody had finished earlier than,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis mentioned at an occasion in October commemorating the tenth anniversary of the state’s legalization measure, as quoted by the Denver Gazette. “With voter [approval] of Modification 64, we made historical past and subsequently it’s becoming that we’re celebrating at present 10 years right here at Historical past Colorado.”
Polis, a Democrat, has labored to strengthen the marijuana legislation. Final summer time, he signed an govt order “to make sure that no Coloradan is topic to penalization for the possession, cultivation, or use of marijuana as this substance is authorized in Colorado because of Modification 64,” his office announced at the time.
“The exclusion of individuals from the workforce due to marijuana-related actions which can be lawful in Colorado, however nonetheless criminally penalized in different states, hinders our residents, financial system and our State. Nobody who lawfully consumes, possesses, cultivates or processes marijuana pursuant to Colorado legislation needs to be topic to skilled sanctions or denied knowledgeable license in Colorado. This contains people who devour, possess, domesticate or course of marijuana in one other state in a fashion that will be authorized below Colorado legislation,” Polis said in an announcement.