Where It All Comes Together

The Destination

“We know that the more positive activity a child has, the better the outcome. We want kids to feel safe. We want them to have interests. We want them to have a place to go.””

Joe Castillo

On a recent evening in Las Cruces, as the last of the desert light faded and the wind began to settle, the activity inside a warehouse near the center of town was just getting started.

A man stepped into a soundproof room and sang as loud as he could — not for a crowd, not for a performance, but because, for a couple of hours, he finally had a place where he could.

Down the hall, a regional cricket team fed balls into a pitching machine built for baseball, adjusting angles and timing in a way the equipment was never designed for. In another corner, tape lines stretched across the floor to form a bocce ball court — regulation length, barely fitting, but fitting all the same.

A few weeks earlier, that same building had been something else entirely: a film set, smoke machines rolling, lights spinning, cameras circling as a local musician turned a pickleball court into a studio. Before that, it was an art gallery filled with framed work from elementary students. Before that, a poetry night.

In a city where people often say there isn’t enough to do, or nowhere quite like this to do it, the space has quietly become something harder to define.

It’s called The Destination.

And it didn’t start with a business plan.

Three years ago, Joe and Janette Castillo weren’t trying to build a community space. They were trying to solve two very specific challenges.

Their youngest son needed a place to train for baseball in the heat. Their oldest needed somewhere to rehearse with his band, somewhere loud wouldn’t be a problem.

“We were just looking to rent a warehouse,” Joe said.

That was the plan, simply, to find a place for their kids. Janette saw something else.

“She said, ‘I think we could probably make this a business… for our community,’” Joe said.

That shift, from solving a family problem to imagining a shared one, is where The Destination began. On paper, the space divides neatly into two parts.

There’s the “Lab,” a professionally turfed training area where athletes cycle through batting cages and conditioning work across sports that range far beyond baseball. And there’s the “Den,” a collection of soundproof rooms and open areas where music, art, meetings and movement all find a home.

In reality, those lines don’t last long. A pickleball court becomes a film set. A sports floor becomes an art studio. A meeting room becomes a gallery. The categories exist until someone walks in with a different idea.

“If you can see it here,” Joe said, “we’re probably going to try to do it here.”

Joe comes from the arts side. Janette from sports. Both come from backgrounds in youth mental health. That part shapes everything.

“We know that the more positive activity a child has, the better the outcome,” Joe said. “We want kids to feel safe. We want them to have interests. We want them to have a place to go.”

The idea started with kids. It didn’t stay there.

“It’s expanded,” he said. “It’s anybody.”

That expansion didn’t happen all at once. It happened one unexpected use at a time.

A nonprofit arrives expecting a dozen people and ends up filling the space with 30, painting 10-foot murals across a gym floor. A Special Olympics bocce ball team needs somewhere to practice indoors, and suddenly the dimensions of the sport, 15 feet by 60 feet, become part of the building’s rhythm.

A Halloween event turns into a volleyball game played in inflatable costumes with a beach ball. A conference. A birthday party. A last-minute concert.

“We never thought we’d have pickleball,” Joe said. “That wasn’t in the plan.”

But plans, it turns out, matter less than openness.

The name came later — and it had to hold all of that. They cycled through ideas for weeks before landing on something that felt big enough.

“Destination,” Joe said, “it’s the place you’re going, but it’s also the journey.”

That dual meaning stuck. It gave the space permission to be both starting point and endpoint, rehearsal and performance, practice and possibility.

“It’s where we want to be part of your journey,” he said, “to your next destination.”

Walk through the building now and that idea plays out in ways the Castillos couldn’t have predicted.

A senior who can’t sing in his apartment comes in a few times a week just to let his voice go.

A group of elementary students sees their artwork professionally framed and hanging on gallery walls for the first time.

A filmmaker spends 13 hours shooting five minutes of footage for the International Film Festival 48-hour challenge, and Joe, watching it unfold, starts to understand the patience behind creative work in a new way.

“I knew movies take forever,” he said. “I just never understood why.”

He laughs now about being credited as an executive producer.

But that’s part of it, the way people become something new inside a space that gives them room. For all its flexibility, The Destination is anchored by a simple idea: positivity.

“Positive energy makes better athletes,” Joe tells the teams that train there.

It’s a coaching philosophy, but it’s also a broader one. In a community where people often say there isn’t enough to do, the Castillos aren’t arguing the point. They’re answering it.

“We hear that all the time — we need more,” Joe said. “Okay. We’re going to do more.”

That includes thinking about the gaps: the 18-to-20-year-olds who don’t quite fit anywhere, the nonprofits that need space, the artists who need a room, the teams that need a place to practice when the weather turns.

It includes trying things that might not work.

“I think it’s trying different things you wouldn’t know to try,” Janette said.

The building sits in the middle of town, but what happens inside it reaches beyond its walls. It shows up in partnerships, in events, in people who walk in with one idea and leave with another. Sometimes, Joe admits, it’s hard to explain.

“You got 20 minutes?” he said, laughing. “Because we do so much.”

Then he settles on the answer he’s learned works best.

“You’ve got to come see it.”

Because the truth of The Destination isn’t in any one room, or sport, or performance. It’s in the way a space becomes something different depending on who walks through the door, and what they bring with them.

A place, yes.

But also, always, a beginning.

Faces & Places 2026 is the inaugural edition of our new lifestyle magazine. Combined with the fall edition, titled Life is Good in Las Cruces, it is filled with feature content about the people, places, and events that make southern New Mexico special.