The Village of Corrales Parks and Recreation Department hosted a groundbreaking ceremony at the recreation center Tuesday to celebrate the beginning of construction on a new gym at the facility.

Mayor James Fahey spoke to a crowd of about two dozen, which included several police officers, Fire Chief Anthony Martinez, several councilors and residents of the village, before the groundbreaking.

“Like many things in Corrales, it took a while to get it done,” Fahey said. “First of all because there’s no money. Then you have to generate a lot of interest to get a lot of focus on it to see there really is a need. Then all of a sudden you’ll have this tsunami of interest in getting it done, and fortunately we’ve had this tsunami of interest here in the village to get this done.”

Several councilors joined the mayor for the groundbreaking as they all sunk their golden shovels into a mound of dirt and shoveled it into the air to kick off the construction of the gym.

“I’d like to specifically thank the Parks and Rec Committee,” Councilor Zach Burkett said. “They’ve done a great job; they’ve been working on this for years. They’re representing the interests of all the generations in the village currently that this facility is going to be useful to. I’m very excited about this and I’m excited to see the village doing this and it’s going to be useful for years to come.”