The doors have been closed to the community for a year, but on Thursday, the Goleta Community Center is set to reopen with upcoming events for seniors, line dancing, game days and more.

The first event back will be a Senior Expo from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday. It’s a free event for local seniors to visit the center and hear from local organizations about their services. There also will be a live band and lunch provided.

The city assumed management of the center, at 5679 Hollister Ave., in December 2022 and closed the center in January 2023 to make seismic upgrades. The auditorium and dining room have been closed since January 2021 because of safety concerns. 

In the center’s history, the property has been a place for the community to take dance lessons, hear from local political candidates, and hear live music on the front lawn. 

Regular programs at the center will include line dancing, pickleball and game days, and more programs are in the works.

“The public is going to have more and greater opportunities to rent and utilize a more modern facility that still is true to its historic roots,” Goleta City Councilman James Kyriaco said.

The property used to be the site of Goleta Union School when it was constructed in 1927. In 1977, the property was leased to Santa Barbara County to operate it as a community center. The Goleta Valley Community Center, a California nonprofit corporation, sublet the property in 1984 to operate it as a community center. Goleta took over the lease from the county in 2002 when it became incorporated. 

The center still needs a number of accessibility improvements, which will include a full renovation of the center’s bathrooms, ramps, lighting and doors. Accessibility improvements are still in the design stage but are expected to have obvious aesthetic changes to the center, while the seismic improvements were more structural and aren’t as visible, according to JoAnne Plummer, parks and recreation manager.

“It’s a 100-year-old building, and we have 100 years worth of work to do,” Plummer said. “We’re working on it and little by little, step by step, the public will see it.”

Plummer said the center is already receiving requests from the public to host weddings, anniversary parties, meetings and quinceaneras in the auditorium and dining room.

“The big excitement is that this seismic project fixed that concern that closed those two rooms, and the auditorium is beautiful,” Plummer said. “We were able to even refinish the floors, and they’re bright and very welcoming to the public. We’re working on what else we can do to get that same feeling at all of the public spaces.”

With the amount of maintenance needed, Kyriaco said it made the most sense for the city to take over operations.

“​​Rather than expecting a local nonprofit organization to try and do everything on its own, it made more sense for the city to really step forward, be more responsible, be more accountable, and get the facility into the kind of condition that it needs to be in so that it can better serve the public,” Kyriaco said.

Once the center is up and running, the city will decide if it will continue managing the center or return it to an organization to manage. 

Kyriaco said he’d like to see satellite library services or the Goleta Valley Book Van as part of the center’s services.

“Old Town as a community is about to have so much investment in terms of our roads, sidewalks and bike paths,” Kyriaco said. “We’ve invested a lot of resources in revitalizing the community center, and I’d really like to have programs like a satellite library service, or bringing the book van there to really bring more of the community out.”

Old Town along Hollister Avenue is seeing many upgrades this year, not just with the center but with infrastructure improvements such as pavement restoration, vehicle and bike lanes in each direction, parking and traffic signal upgrades.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center is set for 10 a.m. Thursday.