Brownsville held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday for the city’s new emergency shelter, which will double as a community gym.

Called the Sports Park Community Safe Room, the 23,400-square-foot building at 1000 Sports Park Blvd. will provide shelter during hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather.

On Saturday, though, residents were busy examining the building’s basketball courts.

“We’re realizing that we’re a very young community and at any given time we have about 150 to 170 — for example — basketball teams,” said City Manager Charlie Cabler. “So we need as much gymnasium space as possible.”

Brownsville built the dome-shaped building with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Community Development Block Grant program.