Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Nevada opens doors on teen center

Membership is growing fast at Carson City’s new teen center.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Nevada’s William N. Pennington Teen Center opened its doors last week.

“The teen population doubled in one week, from 30 to 60 registered members,” said Matt Sampson, program director for both the youth and teen center Monday during a tour of the new building.

Maybe that’s because the teens themselves had a hand in designing the new 6,500 square foot facility, which will host its grand opening June 23.

The building, which is an addition to the existing youth center and next door to the Multipurpose Athletic Center, features a large, two-story open space filled with an already busy video game area, TV lounge, snack bar and pub tables, pool table, foosball table and built-in bleachers, each equipped with electrical outlets for mobile devices.

Surrounding the main room is a large art room, two computer labs with desktop computers, a meeting room, staff office and patio.

The balcony area above features two, large open spaces with seating and bookshelves and a TV, and the about 400 or so square-foot board room that the teens called home before their spacious new center was on the drawing board.

The new center was proposed in February 2015 at a retreat of the clubs’ board, said Kurt Meyer, president.

After that, planning moved quickly because the board knew the William N. Pennington Foundation was making a grant in 2015.

The building was financed with a $1.2 million grant from the foundation and additional donations.

In March 2015, board members toured several teen centers in Reno and Sparks and brought in a panel of six teens to assist with interviewing three architects in April.

That panel included Julian Alvarado and Autumn Cuellar, both 18 years old, and Sierra Machal, 17, and Nitza Velazquez, 14, who helped lead the tour on Monday.

The kids unanimously chose Michael Thompson, Tectonics Design Group, Reno, and after a tour of area teen centers decided on a design style.

“The teens loved the one at Hug High School,” in Reno, said Thompson. “They didn’t want to leave it.”

Thompson calls it industrial retail, which coincidentally complements the neighboring MAC building.

The floors are concrete, beams are exposed. Glass garage doors open to the patio. The walls of surrounding rooms, too, are made of glass with steel panes.

“They don’t feel like they’re going to break anything,” said Thompson.

Thompson was hired in May and design was done in three or four months.

In August, the project went to bid and in October Shaheen Beauchamp Builders broke ground, completing the building just before its opening.

The teen center is open from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday during the summer and plans are to expand that during the school year and possibly Saturday if the membership continues to grow.

The days are programmed in two-hour blocks and include volunteer and engineering clubs, art classes and a drama program and excursions to the MAC as well as Thursday field trips, like the trip to Lake Tahoe planned this week.

The first and last hours of the day are open, when kids can play video games or work on computers, and the day includes breakfast, lunch and snacks.

Membership in the teen center costs $30 a year. The William N. Pennington Teen Center is located at 1870 Russell Way. The grand opening is 10 a.m. June 23.