The Hub Aquatic and Recreation Center has been open about six weeks, and its drop-in rules shape every visit. Lap swim, open swim, open gym and drop-in fitness classes all take people in the order they arrive. Once a space hits capacity, staff let more people in only as others leave. Members don't get priority over people paying the daily rate. A pass makes each visit cheaper. It doesn't reserve a lane. So the main thing to learn at Redmond's new $49 million building at 3515 SW Lava Ave. is how the schedule works.
A weekday at The Hub, hour by hour
The Redmond Area Park and Recreation District, or RAPRD, posts a daily calendar that splits each space into time blocks. Monday, Oct. 19 is a good sample of how one ordinary weekday was divided up:
- 5 a.m. Doors open. Lap swim and water walking run until 9 a.m., and drop-in basketball runs until 8 a.m.
- 10 a.m. Lap swim starts again and runs until 3 p.m. In the leisure pool, the block from 10 a.m. to 4:50 p.m. is set aside for independent exercise, parent-child swim and the spa.
- Noon Drop-in basketball returns until 4:30 p.m.
- 3 p.m. The RACE swim team takes all eight lanes of the lap pool until 5 p.m., then five lanes until 6 p.m. The calendar shows that pattern on Oct. 19, 20 and 21.
- 7:30 p.m. Open gym basketball runs once more until 9 p.m.
- 8:10 p.m. A last lap swim block runs until 9 p.m.
If you swim laps after work, the late-afternoon gap stands out. From 3 to 5 p.m. on those days there's no open lap lane at all. Then there's a short window before the building closes. Weekends work differently. Recreation Swim filled both the lap and leisure pools from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 17 and 18. RAPRD's program descriptions say Recreation Swim is open to all ages. Lap swim is for continuous lengths, and staff may assign lanes by speed or ability.
These blocks change from day to day. Pickleball, for example, showed up as a drop-in session on Tuesday, Oct. 20 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Treat the calendar as something you check before you grab your keys, the way you'd check the weather before a hike.
Why a membership doesn't hold your spot
RAPRD's Hub page explains that capacity limits come from "safety standards, staff-to-participant ratios, available equipment, and the physical size of each activity space." Those limits apply to everyone the same way. On a busy weekend, someone paying $8 at the desk and someone holding a $1,248 household pass wait in the same line. Neither daily admission nor a membership covers registered programs like lessons and leagues, and a daily admission doesn't let you leave and come back in.
Demand showed up quickly. Sports coordinator Chris Davis told the Redmond Spokesman that during the soft opening he noticed kids being dropped off right after school to play basketball. He summed it up as "If you build it, they will come." Davis also told the paper that the center's open gym courts are the only ones in Central Oregon run by a park and rec district. He noted that the Bend Park and Recreation District's Juniper Swim & Fitness Center and Larkspur Community Center don't have one.
There's a reason that matters. Before The Hub opened, RAPRD ran its aquatics out of the Cascade Swim Center, which it leases from the Redmond School District. The Source Weekly reported in October 2025 that Cascade was Redmond's only public pool and that every swim lesson had a wait list. Executive director Katie Hammer described the crowding at Cascade to the Redmond Spokesman this way: "When we have a fitness class, a water fitness class, we have sometimes 40 or 50 people in there and it takes up the whole pool and so then the lap swimmers can't swim during those times." The Hub still divides its pools by the hour. The difference is that it has two of them: an eight-lane, 25-meter lap pool and a separate leisure pool. When one group has a block in one pool, it doesn't shut everyone else out of the water.
Which pass pays off
Once you know when you'll actually go, you can choose a pass. RAPRD prices everything at two levels. The lower in-district rate is for people living inside the district, which serves Redmond, Terrebonne and Tumalo. A boundary map is linked from the district's About page. Here are the adult and household in-district prices from the admission fee page, set against the drop-in rate:
| Option | In-district | Out-of-district | Break-even against the in-district drop-in rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult daily admission | $8.00 | $10.50 | n/a |
| Adult 10-visit pass | $68.00 | $88.50 | Saves $1.20 a visit from the first one |
| Adult 30-day pass | $78.00 | $101.50 | Just under 10 visits in 30 days |
| Adult 12-month pass | $624.00 | $811.50 | 78 visits a year |
| Household daily admission | $24.00 | $31.50 | n/a |
| Household 12-month pass | $1,248.00 | $1,622.50 | 52 household visits a year |
The 10-visit pass works out to $6.80 a visit in-district. Measured against that rate, the 30-day pass only pays off at 12 or more visits a month. So if your best lap times are the early-morning and late-evening blocks and you get there two or three times a week, the punch card wins. The 12-month adult pass comes to $52 a month, which is $26 less than buying a 30-day pass every month. It pays off for people who already know the building fits their week. There are also three-month and six-month tiers in between, plus child and senior rates. A child's daily admission is $5.00 in-district, and a senior's is $6.00.
Parents of young kids have one more scheduling tool. Child Watch runs Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. for ages 6 months to 6 years. It costs $5, with a 90-minute limit per visit. RAPRD now lists weekday closing at 9 p.m. That's an hour later than the 8 p.m. reported before opening. Hours are "subject to change based on program needs and attendance," and entry stops 15 minutes before closing.
What's still behind the construction fence
For now, The Hub is an indoor building. Outdoor work was still going on at the Oct. 3 opening celebration. Davis told the Redmond Spokesman the goal was to finish the turf field, pickleball courts and park area by the end of the year. Once the field is done, the district plans to move its soccer leagues there from the High Desert Sports Complex. That will change the building's busiest hours again. The outdoor pickleball courts will add space beyond the indoor drop-in sessions, and the field will bring league families to the parking lot.
The old pool's future hasn't been decided. The Source Weekly's 2025 preview said Cascade Swim Center, on SW Rimrock Drive next to Redmond High School, would close to the public when The Hub opened. In September, the Redmond Spokesman reported that the Redmond School District had no plans for the building and that it was unclear whether it would be torn down. The RACE swim team's afternoon blocks are now on The Hub's lap-pool calendar. That's one reason those 3 to 5 p.m. lanes are taken.
November and December on the program calendar
Registered programs follow their own schedule, and the popular ones fill early. These are listed on RAPRD's MyRec registration site:
- Youth basketball league, preschool through second grade, Nov. 7 to Dec. 19. It costs $75 for residents and $97.50 for nonresidents.
- Springboard diving, ages 9 to 16, weekdays 5 to 6 p.m. Sessions start Nov. 2, Nov. 16, Nov. 30 and Dec. 14 and cost $70 for residents and $91 for nonresidents.
- Junior Eels pre-competition lessons, ages 6 to 11, Tuesdays and Thursdays 5:35 to 6:05 p.m. The Oct. 27 to Nov. 24 session was listed as full by mid-October. The December session still had seats then.
- Youth and adult lessons, ages 12 and up, Tuesdays and Thursdays 5 to 5:30 p.m., in the same two sessions. Each had only a few seats left in mid-October.
- Preschool and child swim lessons for ages 3 to 5 and 6 to 11, with cycles starting Oct. 26 and Nov. 30. Many sections were already full.
Classes also include Kendo, and the Redmond Spokesman reported that basketball, volleyball, indoor soccer and pickleball leagues will also be offered. Check MyRec for dates and openings before you plan a winter around any of them.
At Ninebark Real Estate, we like keeping track of the places that shape a week in Central Oregon, and The Hub is quickly becoming one of them in Redmond. If you're wondering how a home's location fits with a place like this, including whether it falls inside the RAPRD district boundary, we're happy to talk it through. When you're ready, ask us for a free home valuation.
