Mariposa Community Center celebrates renovations

RIO RANCHO — Mariposa Community Center is undergoing renovations, and community members recently celebrated the first big step.

Cohere Life Mariposa Executive Director Fran Pawlak was thrilled to open the center again Jan. 31 but said there's still more work to come.

"I'm just so thrilled we've started. We've started with creating a space for the residents. Our company — we call ourselves 'a place-making company' — that's a term that we really use — where we make it an inviting place where people want to spend more time together because people aren't meant to be alone," she said.

The community association board hired on Cohere and Pawlak to help improve things in Mariposa for the master plan. One of the first requests was improvements to the gym.

"A lot of people who regularly go love the gym, and that's one of the first things they said when I came on board 15 months ago," she said. 

Another request had to do with the indoor pool's temperature. Pawlak said the room can't handle higher temperatures without a dehumidifier. Part of the problem is the condensation causes rust.

"Hopefully that'll be approved at the board meeting at the end of February and be in place by summer. That's my goal," she said.

If people go into the center now, they may still see some work being done, especially to the floor in the common area. Pawlak said the floor was redone along with having the walls repainted. However, the floor requires another coat.

She recognized the challenges of doing projects like this.

"People want to be able to use this stuff. They're promised this stuff," she said.

The work being done wouldn't have happened without a resident on the board, according to John Karris, a newly elected member.

"This feels great. This building is about 15 years old, and this is, I think, the first semi-major renovation in all that time, and these renovations made a huge difference," he said.

He hopes to continue to "revitalize" the neighborhood.

"We have 1,500 more homes to go, and we want this building to be the space that people that Mariposans come to for community engagement. We want it to be as welcoming as possible," he said. "And I think we're well on our way to doing that." 

There has been a delay in addressing some of the issues residents have encountered, according to Karris.

"I think that not having a resident on the board was a big factor in the delay because the other board members live in Arizona. They don't come here that often. In fact, there were a couple years they didn't come here at all, and I think having someone, an actual resident on the board who sees this, makes a huge difference and can help get things moving," he said.

Improvements in the future will include landscaping and trail work for the pedestrians and cyclists, Karris said.

"We're improving the landscaping. And then you know the park got a big update last year, and we're going to be doing some work on the trails," he said.

"I think the trail system and the outdoor activities are some of the things that separate Mariposa from other master plan communities. We got people hiking and biking on those trails every day."