I had to see the place. It was that simple, really.

For days, the telephone calls and the e-mails arrived:

"This is the only center," Barbara Archuletta wrote, "that serves those who we try not to look at, those in shuffling shoes and walkers we hope we never become."

"For many older adults, this center is not only a place to exercise, but their social lifeline," Maripat Murphy, of Denver wrote, pleading that the needs and concerns of the elderly and disabled not be dismissed.

It sits in a squat, relatively non descript building, just up 38th Avenue from a sprawling RV-storage lot in a far-northeast corner of the city.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, just after noon on this day, is fairly quiet. A few men pump iron or jog on the treadmills in the weight room. The staff is clustered in a small circle behind the front desk for a staff meeting.

So you wander.

Maybe this is what the fallout of tough economic times will be: an increasingly cash-strapped city looking to shutter or outsource beyond all recognition community facilities like this one.

The MLK rec center is on a list of seven Denver community centers a citizen task force recommended be "partnered" with outside groups that would run day-to-day operations as a way to save money. To the folks who come here, that sounds a lot like code for shutting the center down.

The city, for its part, says the task force's recommendations are merely that, and that the City Council isn't expected to take up the issue for some time.

The mere specter of any change at all is what prompted more than 200 people to turn out last week for a meeting with Denver Parks and Recreation officials seeking public input on how the city's rec centers should run in the future.

Such concern, if you've ever spent any time at any of the city's rec centers, is understandable. You'll find many older, mostly retired people who amble in - often hand-in-hand - to spend an afternoon chatting or playing loud, joke-cracking hands of hearts or spades with their friends.

But at the MLK, many come because it is the only Denver center with a therapy swimming pool. So the infirm elderly and the disabled flock here.

Chessa Hallman is sitting in the darkened multipurpose room, putting Shannon Tenze, a 39-year-old Thornton woman, through her paces on a pilates machine, when I walk in.

She has been holding pilates classes at the center since March, and has built a clientele of 18 women. Nearly half of them are 65 or older. Chessa Hallman is not employed by the city.

"I chose this center specifically to help senior African-American women," she explains, adding it is why she charges only $12 for the hourlong class, or less than half the going commercial rate.

She has heard the talk of change, of the center being contracted out or shuttered. She shakes her head and looks away to put Shannon Tenze in yet another stressful position.

"I've created a nice partnership with this center, and I would hope whoever comes in sees the same benefit in the partnership of providing health and wellness for members of this community. If not, that would be a problem."

Michael Alexander, 57, is sweating profusely as he jogs hard on a treadmill inside the center's weight room.

"Blood pressure," he grunts, smiling at me. "Way too high."

He moved to Denver in December from Portland, finding the MLK after several weeks of trying fitness centers and other gyms in the area.

"You go to one of those 24-hour places, they want to do an entire FBI probe on you. Here, everything is more relaxed. You pay your money and get things done. And the people here are almost too nice."

He works out at the center five days a week. It has been his lifeline, he said.

"Being a new guy in town, people here immediately took me in, told me where I could get my hair cut, where the best restaurants and places to go are, where to get my car fixed."

"And look around, this place is clean - some places are just so nasty," Michael Alexander said. "Can't tell you how glad I am for finding this place. Close this place? Never."

Even the prospect of contracting out management sends shivers through many who come here daily. The staff is widely beloved. Many have known them for years.

Jovaughn Esses has come to the MLK every day without fail since he was in eighth grade.

"I'm 20 now," he says. "I love this place. There is no gym in the city better than this one."

He walks here every day from his home in Park Hill to both work out and play basketball. Enrolled now at Metro State, he says his plan is to be a starting guard at Johnson & Wales University next year.

"Ever since I was 13 I've come here, and they have always opened their arms to me, made me feel welcome. It is a place where you never have to worry about your stuff getting stolen, where it is clean, where there is never a problem.

"Truthfully," Jovaughn Esses says, "I don't want to imagine a time with this place not being here."

As I walk out the front door, an elderly woman on a walker is waiting for me to open it. She smiles in appreciation.

She and some friends will spend the afternoon together.

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763

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