photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. is pictured on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.

When the City of Lawrence implements fees for its recreation centers in 2026, they will no longer serve as warming or cooling sites, and one of them, the Community Building, will no longer be open for free play gym hours, either.

The city in a news release on Wednesday announced these changes, which it said were “part of city-wide efforts to reduce costs for 2026.”

Starting Jan. 1, the release said, the Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. will be open “only for enrollment-based programming and reservations — meaning community members will only be able to enter the Community Building when they are enrolled in a program taking place there or have a rental reservation for the facility.”

The other three rec centers — East Lawrence Recreation Center, Holcom Park Recreation Center and Sports Pavilion Lawrence — won’t have those kinds of restrictions, but they will require users to pay membership fees, buy a day pass or register for programming in order to enter. As the Journal-World reported, the Lawrence City Commission approved a 2026 budget in September that included the new fees. For Lawrence residents, memberships would be $12 a month or $120 a year for adults, $8 a month or $80 a year for seniors, and $20 a month or $200 a year for families. Day passes for Lawrence residents would be $3 for the East Lawrence and Holcom Park rec centers and $5 for Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

The city’s release on Wednesday said that because access would be limited to those with memberships or passes, the centers “will no longer serve as warming or cooling centers during extreme weather.” During past severe weather events, such as winter storms or heat waves, the city has allowed people into in the rec centers during business hours to stay warm or cool.

But now, “Emergency shelter during severe weather will be directed through the community’s established sheltering system, which is designed for this purpose,” the release said. It said that the Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St., “is funded to operate all inclement-weather sheltering for Lawrence and Douglas County,” and that the city’s Homeless Response Team would help with getting people to shelter during severe weather events. The shelter can be contacted by phone at 785-832-8864.

More information about rec center memberships will be released later this week, the city’s release said.