Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Mountain View Center 9749 N. 107th Ave. Sun City, AZ
View larger map
By Bret McKeand
Mountain View Recreation Center, 9749 N. 107th Ave., became Sun City’s third recreation center when it officially opened in June 1967.
Originally known as Town Hall South, the facility sat on 6.5 acres of land and featured an auditorium that would accommodate up to 1,200 people. The auditorium , the largest in Sun City up to that point, would soon become the official home to local musical and theater groups, including the Sun City Players.
The center is located just down the street from the Sun Bowl, an outdoor amphitheater that officially opened earlier that same year.
When construction plans for the facility were first announced, the two existing recreation facilities — what are now Oakmont, 10725 W. Oakmont Drive, and Fairway, 10600 W. Peoria Ave. — were owned and operated by two separate entities. The Civic Association owned and operated the Community Center (now Oakmont Center) and the Town Hall Association operated Town Hall Center (now Fairway).
Town Hall would also operate the new recreation center, giving residents of that organization access to two facilities, while original homeowners of Sun City’s first phase would be restricted to using Oakmont.
The relationship between the two entities was cordial and, for the most part, residents belonging to one facility were often allowed in as guests to use the other facility.
Soon after Mountain View opened, however, Webb Company officials announced plans to expand Sun City north of Grand Avenue. Included in that expansion were plans to build the community’s fourth — and most expansive — recreation center that would be located adjacent to a huge man-made lake.
Those expansion plans prompted Town Hall and Civic Association officials to begin meeting with an eye toward combining their entities into one recreational organization owned by all Sun City residents. Most important, the new structure would allow every Sun City resident equal access to all of the community’s then-existing and future recreational facilities.
Representatives of the two groups signed a consolidation agreement Feb. 2, 1968 to create the Sun City Community Association, which would eventually become the Recreation Centers of Sun City.
Not much has changed at Mountain View over the years, with the exception of the addition of tennis courts located north of the entrance to the auditorium.
