MAPS 3 officially completed Wednesday with the south OKC senior center launch. See inside.
Oklahoma City's MAPS 3 initiative saw its final project celebrated Wednesday with the launch of the latest senior health and wellness center at 13660 S Western Ave.
The new YMCA Healthy Living Center offers various amenities and services meant to support residents age 50 and older. The 44,800-square-foot facility features a large fitness center, a gym with pickleball setups, a heated lap and therapy pool, an indoor jogging track, a health clinic, a game room, a demonstration kitchen, an arts classroom, and spaces for recreation and sports activities.
The center will be open from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Staff are encouraging residents to call 405-378-0420 or go to ymcaokc.org for membership information.
Hundreds attended a grand opening ceremony in the center's parking lot. Kelly Kay, CEO for the YMCA of Greater Oklahoma City, touted the new center as a community-building hub for older adults to combat the risks of isolation and loneliness.
“This is such a great example … of our commitment to healthy aging, and that commitment to an improved quality of life for our older adults,” Kay said. “And most importantly: not to forget those that are the reason we’re living in the community that we’re in today, and not to forget them as they need a high quality of life in their older years and an opportunity to grow older in a healthy way.”
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The center also features six sculptures created by Rachel Mica Weiss titled "Infinite Arches," a project funded by the city's 1% for Arts program. The installation is made of hundreds of polyester rope strands intersecting beneath one another over the fitness center.
'This is a community that invests in itself'
In ribbon-cutting remarks, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said the facility's opening represents the culmination of the MAPS 3 program, a $777 million initiative that funded eight quality-of-life improvement projects through a one-cent sales tax between 2010 and 2017.
“This is a community that invests in itself,” Holt said. “We have been passing initiatives for 31 years — since 1993, the passage of the original MAPS — and we haven’t failed anything. And we create these initiatives in a very transparent and collaborative process, and then ultimately you (the residents) get to vote.”
Holt noted that MAPS 3, like the first MAPS initiative, passed by a thin margin, but that the more recent MAPS 4 proposal saw a landslide victory at the ballot box.
“Once you get a pipeline started, you’ve always got new things to look forward to,” Holt said. “People are starting to catch on.”
More: Older Oklahomans to benefit from MAPS 3 centers, trails
Other speakers included Ward 5 Councilmember Matt Hinkle, who was elected last year to represent the area in which the center was built, as well as longtime former Ward 5 councilor David Greenwell and South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce President Elaine Lyons.
Greenwell, who was elected to city council in 2011 and did not seek a fourth term in 2023, likened the memories of awaiting the development and completion of the Healthy Living Center to the upsetting experience of standing in line at a popular restaurant for an hour.
"But once you get to the front of the line and you're finally seated, all of that frustration goes away," Greenwell said, "and that's exactly what happened to me (Wednesday) morning getting to walk through it."
MAPS 3 Citizens Advisory Board Chair Tom McDaniel, a former Oklahoma City University president, emceed Wednesday's event. He said it had been an honor to serve the city in the board role and that he had enjoyed working with city councilmembers, subcommittee members and other MAPS advisers as they guided projects to completion over the past 14 years.
“We’re very excited about the fact that we didn’t spend any money until we had the money to spend, and it will start debt-free,” McDaniel said. “And that’s been one of the tenets of all the MAPS projects, and it certainly applies here today.”
What MAPS projects will start in 2024? Everything to know about ongoing OKC projects
MAPS 3 tasks that remain will now fall to the MAPS 4 Citizens Advisory Board, whose committee is providing oversight of 16 projects expected to cost $1.1 billion overall.
On the ambitious MAPS 4 slate is a fifth wellness center budgeted at $16.7 million. Included is an additional $15 million to start an operating fund and provide financial assistance for older adults with low incomes.
What were the MAPS 3 project?
The eight MAPS 3 projects included:
The downtown Oklahoma City Scissortail Park
The Bennett Event Center at the OKC Fairgrounds
Four senior health and wellness centers
The Riversport Rapids whitewater rafting and kayaking center on the Oklahoma River
The West River, Will Rogers, Lake Draper, Katy and Air Depot trails
Sidewalks in high-demand pedestrian areas
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: YMCA Healthy Living Center, last MAPS 3 project, opens in south OKC
