Wellstone Center

The West Side neighborhood of St Paul gets screwed, again. We had a real community center/​rec center at Baker, which was the worst in St Paul, but that got CLOSED. So now we have a tiny fitness room in the basement of the Paul Wellstone Center with four junky aerobics machines squeezed together next to a set of weights. Of course, it is only open M-​F in the late afternoon-​evening, and closed on weekends.
The Wellstone Building has some nice spaces, but they charge for using all the nice parts of the building. They then stuck the El Rio Vista Recreation Center into the basement and a few windowless interior spaces that are undesirable, and allow access on a very limited basis. It really sucks. It is not a community center at all. It is a fancy, super expensive event center in the nice parts of the building that are locked and unavailable to local residents. Only tiny, window-​less basement rooms plus a basketball court with a walking track around it constitute the community center portion of the place.
Why, you might ask? Chalk it up to a corrupt and ineffective district council that does nothing to advocate for the best interests of the people who live here on the West Side, and sat by doing absolutely nothing when a real community center at Baker was turned into a private for rent building.
While every other neighborhood in St Paul has fantastic community centers/​rec centers going up, our neighborhood on the West Side had ours taken away and replaced with nothing. And people wonder why there is so much gang violence going on here on the West Side. The kids on the West Side have nothing to do but join gangs, beat each other up, and break into homes and vehicles.
What a shame.

[Note: this facility is multi-​purposed. My review is about the fitness amenities (gym, locker rooms, fitness room). There are also conference rooms, an auditorium and other event spaces here that I won’t be discussing.]
The City of Saint Paul owns and operates several recreation centers. I was looking for an indoor walking/​running track and a fitness room and came across the «Saint Paul Getting Fit» program, through which I can buy a membership to use any of the facilities for – get this – $ 30 *annually* (
). Not per month, per year. So with the cold weather on its way, I went to my nearest recreation center, the Wellstone Center (also known as El Rio Vista Rec Center) and bought a membership.
The lady at the front desk was very nice and helpful. There was open gym going on for volleyball and basketball, as well as a big festival in the auditorium. She was handing out passes, taking gym fees, and helping me sign up for my membership, without so much as blinking. Do not hesitate to call the front desk line if you have questions, she will help you out. (Tangent: when I first heard about the Getting Fit program, I called the main St Paul Park & Rec office. The person I talked to didn’t give me any information, and couldn’t even tell me which Rec Centers had walking tracks. Very underwhelmed).
The locker rooms are on the lower level. Small, but fine for my needs. It’s BYO-​Lock, and they do have small and larger lockers. There are also two shower stalls in the ladies locker room, for your reference.
The fitness room is also on the lower level, and is fairly small. There were three ellipticals, two treadmills, a multi-​function weight machine, two sets of free weights, two bars for bench press (one standard, one was a really cool self-​spotting machine), and a couple other pieces of miscellaneous strength-​training equipment. The treadmills are really nice – newer, with good options for programmed and manual work outs.
As a cooldown, I went upstairs to use the walking track. Myself and the SO were the only ones using it on a Sunday afternoon. The track is smallish (11.5 laps = 1mile) and is probably only about 6 feet wide, but it does the trick. It’s suspended over the gymnasiums, so I had a good time watching the local teens playing volleyball and basketball.
Overall, I was very impressed with this facility for the price I paid to use it. Their fitness amenities don’t have a ton of capacity, but there also aren’t many people using it (There were 2 other people in the fitness room, and no one on the walking track). The facility is clean and well-​maintained. The staff is friendly and helpful. And it’s, overall, a fantastic amenity for the West Side community.