Agoura Hills-Calabasas Community Center Closes Until January

AGOURA HILLS-CALABASAS, CA — Facing a loss of revenue, the Agoura Hills-Calabasas Community Center announced Friday that it will close its doors from Monday until at least January.

The 20-year-old center was hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, and Agoura Hills Director of Finance Christy Pinuelas told the City Council May 20 that the center has been unable to generate any revenue in the past few months.

Pinuelas said that despite two recent $50,000 contributions from both Agoura Hills and Calabasas, the center will run completely out of cash by July. Pinuelas estimated that the center would need $200,000 contributions from each city to continue operations into the fall.

On May 21, the center’s board held an emergency meeting to discuss next steps and unanimously decided to close down temporarily. Executive Director Brianne Anderson said that regularly scheduled programs will be halted during this period and that refunds are being issued for upcoming events, programs, memberships, camps and security deposits.

“The center does not currently have enough funding to reopen at this time or pay its staff after July and all major bills that needs to be paid in the next six months,” Anderson wrote in an email. “The choice was not an easy one but the [Joint Powers Authority] Board did not see any other option until funding and a new business model are put in place.”

Community Center board member and Agoura Hills Councilmember Deborah Klein Lopez said at the May 20 council meeting that the center was already facing increased competition from other area gyms and recreation centers even before the pandemic. It was preparing to come to the Agoura Hills and Calabasas councils with a capital improvement and reinvention plan the week that everything shut down due to the COVID-19 crisis, Klein Lopez said.

Anderson said that once COVID-19 crisis hit, the center offered free virtual and social media content, did a deep clean of its facilities and tried to find ways to meet its operational costs. Anderson added that the staff and board will work to find alternative programming in the months ahead and that they are also figuring out ways to keep the building grounds maintained in the months ahead.

Klein Lopez said that the center will report back to the two city councils in upcoming months to work out a long-term solution. In the meantime, Anderson is asking the community to join the conversation with ideas for the center’s future by emailing her at brianne@ahccc.org.

“It is a very sad discussion, and I thank you for your support,” Agoura Hills Community Services Director Amy Brink said at the May 20 meeting. “A little dose of optimism that we will pull out of this and, hopefully, it’ll bring some bigger and better and different-looking events. I know that the community is anxiously awaiting to see what we can do, and we’ll deliver.”