Alex H.
2/5
Lets start with the positives: The building is nice and seems to be well maintained. It was a perfect place to have a birthday party. This is the ONLY reason it even gets 2 stars, and that is generous.
Now to the reasons I would recommend renting ANYWHERE else for your event. I began trying to contact someone with the parks and recreation department in the beginning of July 2024 in preparation for my party planned for August 10. I needed to know if it was possible to rent the community center for the entire day rather than just 8-12 or 2-6. After 2 voicemails not returned I decided to message the City of Calera on Facebook and they were able to confirm that when I rented online that I would have the center for the entire day. They also confirmed the phone number and gave me an email address for Wade Hyde and told me that someone would contact me about how to get in to the building. I rented the center online on Monday, July 8th.
A few days go by and no one contacts me about what I needed to do to get in to the building so I called and left more voicemails that went unreturned, sent two emails and even copied Seth Gandy on one of them after not hearing back from Wade Hyde. Absolute radio silence. I finally am able to reach someone by phone one morning and confirm that I could get in as early as Friday night as long as the building was vacant that that someone would let me in.
Fast forward to the day of the party, Saturday, August 10. I arrive at 8:20 AM and no one is there to let me in. I call the number for the parks department and as usual, no one answers. I wait a few more minutes and no one shows up, no one calls back, again NOTHING. I am in tears at this point because the party is at 11:00 and I needed to decorate and prepare food. I finally called the police department since that is who is listed to call when you are leaving the building. They said "Wade usually tells people to come get the key" to which I responded that Wade told me absolutely NOTHING even though I called and emailed him MULTIPLE TIMES. They proceed to try to contact Wade with no luck. A few minutes later they call back telling me that someone was on the way with a key.
About 10-15 minutes later a very kind man called PeeWee shows up apologizing and lets us in the building with his key, tells us to hold on to it, and that he will be back to pick it up. So around 9:00 or later we are finally in the building.
After the party is over and we have cleaned up and taken photo/video evidence of how we left the building we call the police department again (as per the directions via the parks and rec website) to have them send someone else to do the inspection. My husband waited for over an hour and had to call back twice and no one ever showed up. He ended up leaving the key under the mat after confirming with the police department to do so. No one ever came to do the inspection.
It is now August 20 and this morning I left a voicemail that I can only assume will go unreturned about when I can expect to receive my $350 deposit refund, which I should receive since we followed all of the rules and left no trash or damage behind.
Calera parks and recreation needs to seriously reevaluate who is in charge of this building since the person currently in this position is extremely hard to reach, uncommunicative, and unreliable.
