The Warner Park Community Recreation Center, at 1625 Northport Drive, is a 32,000-square-foot structure built in 1999. About 260,000 people use the center a year.
The need for
a center
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Madison’s Northside was gaining a reputation as a troubled area. It was experiencing increases in poverty, drug use and violent crime. To make matters more difficult, residents didn’t have a unified way to respond. A few smaller neighborhood groups worked for change, but they didn’t have the reach to create change across the broader Northside area.
