By Robert Perea
After nearly 10 years of planning and 17 months of construction, the City of Fernley will celebrate the completion of the first phase of the Community Response and Resource Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, August 27.
Meanwhile, the Boys & Girls Club of Truckee Meadows Serving Fernley will welcome students to the new building for the first time on Monday, September 2.
““This is going to be game changing for the city and help increase the quality of life for its residents as it grows,” Mayor Neal McIntyre said.
The City Council was scheduled to consider approval of the lease agreement negotiated between the city and the Boys & Girls Club for the lease and operation of the building. If the lease is approved, the Boys & Girls Club would occupy the building and house its Fernley operations there.
“The Community Resource and Response Center is a huge step forward for youth and families in one of northern Nevada s fastest-growing communities,” Boys & Girls Club Area Director Oscar Aguilar said.
In a message to parents, the Boys & Club said it would be relocating the Fernley Intermediate School, Fernley Teen Senter and Silverland Middle School sites to the CRRC starting on August 25. Hours of operation at the Fernley Youth & Teen Clubhouse at the CRRC would be from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Transportation will be provided before and after school to and from the new location.
School site programs at Cottonwood Elementary and East Valley Elementary will continue before school from 6:30-8:30 a.m., after school from 3-4:30 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and from 2-3:30 p.m. on Fridays. Youths will be transported to the new location at approximately 4:15 p.m. each day.
“(This is) sorely need for the Boys & Girls Club and for the city’s emergency preparedness,” McIntyre said. “This is really going to help the Lyon County School District, because all of their programs were spread thin across all the schools, now it will be under one roof.”
Spanning 18,230 square feet, the facility includes a multipurpose room, commercial kitchen, office space, classrooms, teen center, and an outdoor event plaza.
“This first phase is just the beginning, laying the groundwork for a larger campus that will bring vital services together, strengthen our community, and open the door to brighter futures for Fernley s kids and families,” Aguilar said.
Construction on Phase 1 of the CRRC building began in March 2024 and was completed in July. Phase II is planned as an Early Learning Center and Phase III would be a gymnasium, expanding its role as a hub for education, recreation, and emergency response. Funding for the project came from a mix of sources, including $12 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, half a million in Community Development Block Grants, and a robust capital campaign led by the Fernley Community Foundation, which rallied local businesses and residents to support the build.
The effort to build a community center began in earnest in 2017 with the formation of the Fernley Community Foundation. The city had begun the process in 2013, but at that time, the idea was to build a convention center that would bring in businesses and events. But in 2017, the idea changed to a community center that could host conventions, but would house many other community entities, such as the Boys & Girls Club, Western Nevada College and several other ideas. The Fernley Community Foundation held a series of public meetings to determine what residents wanted in a community center, and among the ideas were a large gym space that could be used to host the performing arts, a large commercial kitchen to be used for major events, and a host of other facilities.
Also in 2017, when Lyon County was looking to build a new Senior Center, the city and county began working together to see if it could be done on the site the city had purchased for the proposed community center. The city had formed the Fernley Convention and Tourism Authority about 10 years earlier to use room tax money for community development, and that money was used to buy the land on Main St.
Construction on the new Senior Center began in 2019 and was completed in 2020.
On August 4, 2021 the City Council allocated $12 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) toward the development of a Community Response & Resource Center. Because the city used ARPA funds, programming and services in the CRRC must be ARPA eligible. The city identified the following ARPA eligible services and programs needed in the community as COVID-19 testing and vaccination site, workforce development services/programming, education assistance services, afterschool programming, and early childhood education.
On January 19, 2022 the council approved a Letter of Intent to a lease agreement between the city and the Boys & Girls Club of Truckee Meadows to operate and maintain sections of the CRRC to meet ARPA funding requirements.
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