MARYSVILLE – While still called the Rotary Ranch, the old petting zoo at Jennings Memorial Park looks more like a condo than a barn.

Mike Robinson with the city said the facility, which opened Feb. 17, will be used for various parks and recreation activities, including yoga, kettle ball and other exercise classes. Summer camps will be held there. It will be used for other community events, such as the annual Easter Egg Hunt. The 2,000-square-foot building will be used by other groups, such as United Way. Temporarily, until the Ken Baxter Community Center is fixed, it also will house the senior center.

“It will host rec programs year-round now and into the future,” Robinson said, adding some events took place outside that should have been inside but there were not enough buildings.

Mike Leighan of the Rotary Club said it is an important meeting room needed by the community.

While he and many other club members donated many hours of labor to the project, Leighan said the city’s finish work is “gorgeous,” with pine columns and moulding around doors and windows.

Leighan said the Rotary Club has a long history with the building. It started a petting zoo there in 1987, but it burned to the ground in 1993. The club rebuilt the petting zoo, but it closed down about five years ago when the agriculture teacher at the high school retired. There also were health issues surrounding similar petting zoos in other communities at the time.

Last year, when Leighan was the Rotary community projects chairman, the city approached the club about a new facility.

With the club’s long history with the building, “We didn’t want the Kiwanis coming in” and taking over, Leighan joked.

The club raised $18,000 for the project, and the district Rotary Club kicked in another $5,000.

Robinson said the facility will include two big-screen televisions, heating, air conditioning, technology for computers and a security system.

In the summer when the weather is nice, the building features two garage doors that will open and “let the outside come in, which is a fun feature,” he said.

The city used a $28,000 grant in the partnership. He said Rotary members who are in construction helped a lot, doing the plumbing, carpeting, etc., and allowing materials to be purchased at cost.

“It was a great job of collaboration,” he said, adding it is hard to believe the building once had a “trough in it so things could be hosed down.”

Aileen Brower, who teaches the Kaleidoscope class for United Way, said the building used to be “rickety” and have hay bales in it.

“Now it has beautiful woodwork, and it’s carpeted so it’s easier on the little kids,” said Brower, who has children Tanner, 4, and Dallon, 2, in the class. “They re-did everything. It’s amazing. I love it.”