Pine Tech holds ribbon-cutting for student recreation center

Pine Technical and Community College held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for The REC on Tuesday afternoon.

The student recreation center is located at the site of the former Fairview clinic on 2nd Street Southeast, and occupies 10,000 square feet of space at the Lakeside Student Living facility.

Pine Tech president Joe Mulford said the space has helped to bring students together.

"We knew that students do better when they're connected to others," Mulford said, "So the opportunity to bring them together, whether that's in the evening to watch a little football and have some pizza, to do things like this, that we didn't always have the best spaces for, either. So as we looked at it, it just kind of came about."

Mulford thanked the Greater Pine Area Endowment, Pine Technical and Community College Foundation, and Pine City and Pine County for directly supporting the rec center project.

"We wouldn't be here today without a lot of ideas, creativity, and ultimately some of those financial supporters," he said.

Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development commissioner Matt Varilek said the agency's childcare economic development grant program helped provide about $500,000 to the county to help make the project possible.

"There's the old phrase that it takes a village to raise a kid," Varilek said. "You could say the more bureaucratic version is that it takes intergovernmental partnerships to raise a kid. ... The governor talks a lot about wanting to make Minnesota the best place to raise kids, and we're working hard on that, partly through projects like today."

In his remarks, Pine City Mayor Kent Bombard said he's grateful for the building's development.

"It's fantastic to see this use for this building," he said.