Southwest Community Center & Pool

I have very mixed feelings about the SW Community Center. I work out here at least 3 times a week. The place can be really busy and then it’s a pain. The cardio machines can all be full and people try to hide how long they have been on them. Also, the air can get really stale in there when there are so many people. In summer, it get way too hot and the air conditioning sucks… so you need to get there early in the day to beat the heat, which doesn’t always work for me. My husband complains about how difficult it can be to get a lane to swim laps sometimes.
On the other hand, the place is close by and convenient. It is kept very clean. The staff is friendly and there are lots of both weight machines and free weights. They have many options for paying for your sessions, from paying as you go to 20 card visits, to monthly and annual passes. They offer a variety of classes from yoga and tai chi to zumba and work-​your-​ass off workouts.
So, since it has many pluses but just as many minuses, I give it a 3 — smack dab in the middle of the ratings system.

I would like to give all of these stars to the staff at the SW Community Center. Our 2 kids are attending Spring Break day camps this week, and I cannot say enough about the quality of care that my family has received and what I also saw being given to other families and kids. I have been going to the facilities for a few months, and liked the place. However the gift of the experience for our kids is so important. I had not expected such a nurturing environment, and I am very happy that we got a chance to do this.

I hate this place. The gym feels like you’re working out in someone’s stinky closet, there’s never any parking, and to top it off, my son and I were turned away from family swim because they said the pool area was at capacity because of the exercise classes going on. Never mind that the actual family swim area only had three people in it. If I could go less than one star I would
.

A cooler lap and Aqua-​aerobics pool accompanies the shallow kid-​friendly pool and great slide. I wish the kid pool was warmer because my kids lips are blue halfway thru the swimming lessons. They have seasonal activities such as an egg hunt, Halloween party, and daddy daughter dance. These events have suffered from minor organizational and flow issues but the people running them are friendly and enthusiastic and they are relatively inexpensive. There is a moderate sized gym with a good selection. The indoor playground is best for crawlers and early toddlers. By the time my kid was 2, she was pretty bored with it. Like most pools, it would be great to have a bigger locker room and more family changing rooms. Nonetheless, this is a nice facility that is well kept.

Love love love my SWCC! The facility is clean, open, the classes are awesome, the gym is fantastic, and the staff is amazing. I have to give a shout out to the SWCC staff. They seriously make me day better.

Awesome place to workout. The gym is smallish but the equipment is good. They have wonderful exercise classes. I especially like Holly’s classes.

I’m spending a lot of time here these days as I’m a member. Great variety of classes for the little ones, indoor park is a savior when the toddler needs to burn some energy in the winter. The pool can vary in temperature and as I’m not a cold water fan that’s why its not getting 5 stars. On the up side there is always the hot tub! Kids love the slide and rope swing in the pool, I just wish they had something like this when I was growing up. Lots to do for all ages, the staff are friendly and helpful and great classes, sometimes they can get really packed and the parking lot overflows, otherwise its brilliant. To top it all the building is well balanced in the environment and has beautiful wood beams and architecture throughout.

The temperature is great, and they have a lot of fun toys for the kids during the open swim. We were disappointed that we weren’t allowed in the bigger pool with the basketball hoops though.
Also the water at the bottom of the large slide is only 3 feet deep, so when I went down it I scraped my foot really bad (It scarred!). When I brought this up to the worker at the top of the slide they pointed to a sign WAY down at the water level (2 stories down) that was hidden and hard to see. They need to notify people at the TOP of the slide, how deep the water is.

Went to their Friday Zumba class with Kimo (for the first time)! The atmosphere was open and casual, it didn’t feel like a «gym». The class went by so fast I almost forgot I was working out. haha just kidding it was a serious work out, but was smiling the whole time. Can’t wait to go again!!!

I interact with this facility primarily as a parent of swim students, so this review will focus on the pool & swim lesson component of their services. The pool is clean and spacious, with both a lap pool and a shallower, partitioned pool with play features, a water slide, and varying depths from 1′-5′ for different skill/​age lessons. Registration for concurrent sessions infamously occurs 2 – 3 weeks before the final pass/​fail status of continuing students is known, which leads to a certain inefficient amount of holding & cancelling, and –frustratingly– inaccurate filling up of classes.
The quality of instruction is highly variable, owing in part to the naturally high turnover of their largely high school instructor pool from year to year. I’ve seen some instructors who were gifted, patient teachers who balanced the needs for demonstration, repetition, and individual attention, while also keeping the lessons simultaneously fun and on task. I’ve also seen instructors who are bewildered by the kids’ antics and unable to manage getting everybody their repetitions in the core curriculum. But the median experience is one in which the kids will practice the core components as a group, supplemented with a few familiar games, and ending the lesson with jumps, while receiving minimal –if useful– individual attention. Graduation from level to level is similarly inconsistent. I’ve had my daughter fail to pass when it seemed she had mastered the curriculum, and conversely, be passed when I was sure she was the most struggling student. When I step back and look at it from a distance, I have to acknowledge that however well my kids can swim, they mostly learned it here, but I’m also fairly well convinced that the process was less efficient and less thorough than it ought to have been.

Cool recreation center, glad they built this for the community. Pool is good but the gym is a little small. If you live close to this place you should at least check it out and see what you think.

This is my gym. It has well standard gym stuff. It seems that there is always some sort of class for kids going on and a really cool pool.
I bought a 20x card for like 80 bucks and it’s kept me going for about 3 months… way better than paying 40 bucks a month for the gym

I love the pool, but their winter hours are unreasonable — only 1 or 2 lanes for lap swimming every single evening?! Clearly, lap swimmers are second-​class citizens.
Their fitness classes are usually very good, esp. Zumba, but good classes are always very very packed.
Parking is horrible during peak hours, otherwise easy (noon hours can be bad too for some reason). Get there before 5pm or after 6:30pm (or even 7 sometimes) or you will have to park far far away because even road sides will be packed.
Their gym used to suck: tiny (the world’s smallest gym; in fact, it should be more accurately called a «fitness room/​closet»), old equipments, tiny stretch area. They finally got some fabulous new machines at the beginning of the year. More treadmills please — their stationary bikes are seldom used!
It took me a while to get used to the atmosphere as a single person with no kids, since this place is designed for families with kids. I felt really weird the first time I got there, but now am used to it. Monthly fee is $ 43 for singles (the upside: no contract), much more expensive than what people pay for commercial gyms like 24 or LA Fitness.
I still want a «real» gym, but since none (that I like) exists in my area, SWCC is a satisfactory substitute.

5 stars for the pool, 2 stars for the gym.
I love that the gym is not a meat-​market, but checking egos and vanity at the door should not include deodorant. Seems that there could be some personal regard for hygiene or a fan to push it outside.
Often times, there is a wave of dense air that challenges my breathing the minute I open the door. Great exercise for my patience and non-​judgement — so I continue to work these things out too.
That said, they have a guy that cleans gear all morning, which keeps it looking good, and remains my focal point as I practice breathing less through my nose.

This is a great facility. I am so glad that I finally started going here after two years of receiving the Portland Parks & Rec guide each season in the mail. The fees are comparable to other places, but something about it just makes it user friendly to visit.
You will generally see lots of families coming to use the pool on the weekends, but the facilities are used by a large cross section of people, from those that are pretty fit and work out quite often to those who may be a little less apt to work out consistently (e.g. me). I have never had to wait for a machine, even during the always busy month of January and even on the weekends. There are TVs in the workout room, plenty of different types of weights and weight machines, space to straight, and my favorite thing — cubbies in the workout room (which means you don’t have to use a locker just so you have someplace to put your keys and sweatshirt).
While I don’t need it quite yet, I will someday enjoy the fact that they have childcare on site and a wide variety of children’s programs. This is the kind of place that you imagine that you think of when you think of the word «community».

Been using this facility for years. Used to live next door when I was single and would work out there. Now as an out of district mom, I still rely on the this center for swim classes for my daughter. Can’t beat the rates even with an out of district fee. Also appreciate the 20 visit card option so I am not wasting my money on a monthly membership and I have a back up for bad weather work outs.
Really can’t be much better, except would like the swim classes to be at least 45 minutes vs the current 30mins. A lot of the kid classes are just 30 minutes which seam to end when they just got started.
Locker rooms do get busy so single people need to be aware this is family dominated place when swim classes are in session.
Would like to see at least two short showers for kids in the woman’s locker room. Kids love the one short shower and will line up for it and refuse to use the standard size stalls.
Wish there was a similar center in my area near Washington Square.

I can walk to this facility from my house, which is why it’s my 3x/​week workout spot, which lately has been C25K training runs.
I really like the fact that I can buy a number of visits (20 visits is $ 88) instead of paying a monthly fee, so I can keep costs down.
I haven’t used the pool or the basketball gym, just the weights/​equipment room. I like how it has an area to stretch and do plyometrics aside from the machines, but I wish they had more treadmills and fewer elliptical/​bike machines, because the treadmills are always at least 75% in use, no matter what time I show up.
I’m docking a star for the fact that the ladies’ locker room is always so stifling hot that it doubles as a sauna, plus it’s teeming with little kids changing, so it’s tough to even grab a locker without bumping into one of them, and you seldom get to use the benches because mothers are changing their babies on every available surface.

What a beautiful and affordable facility! The lap pool isn’t very big, but the fact that it is open for lap swim for hours at a time (as opposed to the 1 – 1.5 hour slots I’m used to) more than makes up for that. My one criticism is that they do not have a swimsuit spinner/​dryer.
As a sidenote, unlike at the public pools in San Francisco, pool etiquette is acutely observed here. To the lady in the pool who was alarmed because she didn’t have time to get adjusted to my presence, my apologies again.

Wow, I can’t believe it took me so long to discover this gem. I love to run in Gabriel Park, but I never went into the community center until a recent weekend when we decided to take Baby for a swim. Tha facilities are beautiful! There was lots of activity in the lobby (lots of kids’ birthday parties in progress) a kids’ basketball game going on in a beautiful gym, and lots of people taking advantage of the exercise/​weight room.
We were there for family swim at the pool, so I took Baby into the locker room. I don’t think it would ever be easy to get both Baby and myself ready for swim (she’s a squirmer!) but the reason I won’t give this place 5 stars is that the locker room was pretty un-​baby friendly. They had one of those hard plastic changing tables, but everything else was hard concrete and narrow benches.
The pools are awesome. The kid pool is warm, has lots of fountains and cool features. It was pretty crowded on a Saturday, but not so crowded that we didn’t have room to play around.
This is a great place for families.

Southwest Community Center is a great place for families. If you’ve got kids, especially small kids, they offer a number of free and low-​cost activities to both members and the public. If you’re looking for a good combination destination for you *and* your kids, this might well be the place.
I’ll probably be re-​joining, but I’m hesitant after joining for a year in ’08 and finding that the water feature pictured didn’t work for a good 3 – 4 months. It sounds like it’s been repaired, but I’m still gunshy.
That said, the center still gave my wife and I a place to exercise and just hang out while getting some cheap babysitting for our daughter, who’s now almost 4.
The pluses:
+ Low Price. We couldn’t join a regular gym as a family for the $ 60 /​month it costs here.
+ Monthly family nights. These are great if you’re looking for something to do with the kids but don’t want to drop a ton of coin.
+ Activities and classes during the week
+ Water Slide.
The minuses:
— Inattentive customer service. If you need to talk to someone, plan on a) leaving a message, b) calling repeatedly, or c) going into the facility. Reaching people on the phone typically requires multiple phone calls, even when you leave a message. Heaven forbid you need to talk to the facility director or anyone with any kind of authority.
— Minimal equipment. This is not a gym, but the price reflects that. It’s really a minimal gym to placate people who might otherwise complain coupled with a pool and two basketball courts.
— Really, really busy. Friday nights and any time after 7am, this place is packed. Plan on going early (read:5:30a) or really late in the day (8 or 9p) to avoid the crowds.
Most people like to use the cardio equipment right before or right after work. If you’re looking to oogle a bunch of stay-​at-​home-​moms from the West Hills, try showing up around 9a after they drop the kids off at school. The pool is almost always packed from around the end of school to close, but it varies from day to day.
They occasionally offer guest passes, so keep your eyes open and you might see a special where they offer some kind of visitor pass so you can check it out. If you go in and want to look around, they’re usually pretty accommodating. When there aren’t problems, it’s a great place to visit.