Community center on track for July opening

Community center on track for July opening
Bucky James Center will be open to city groups
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer
Residents of Long Branch can expect to be able to utilize a new community center by midsummer.

Left: Construction of the Bucky James Community Center in Long Branch is expected to be completed by July. Above: Work progresses on the building interior and the gymnasium on May 26. Left: Construction of the Bucky James Community Center in Long Branch is expected to be completed by July. Above: Work progresses on the building interior and the gymnasium on May 26. Long Branch Housing Authority Director Tyrone Garrett said last week that construction of the Bucky James Community Center is on schedule to be completed by July 15.

Garrett said that construction, which is being done by AJD Construction, Leonardo, has gone forward without any problems so far.

“AJD Construction is the same general contractor that built our Garfield phases and our Hope VI phases,” Garrett said. “Everything is fine, there’s been no setbacks at all.”

Architect for the design of building is Alexander Morris, Wallace, Roberts and Todd, N.Y.

The old building, located at 231 Wilbur Ray Blvd. behind the Gregory Elementary School, has been demolished and the new community center is being built on the site.

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff Garrett said the new building provides amenities lacking in the former community center.

“It was old and obsolete,” he said. “This building is going to be wired and going to have technology. It’s going to be a facility that is going to be conducive to today’s day and age.”

He described the features of the two-story building.

“It’s going to have a library, it’s also going to have a media room and a multipurpose gymnasium,” he said.

“We have meeting space, an infant care center, office space, meeting room space and the gym is on the first level,” he said. “When you go to the second level, we have our media center, our library, another multipurpose room and a neighboring networking room, which is a computer room with 15-20 computer stations.”

Garrett said the gym would take up a large portion of the center.

“The gym takes up most of the space,” he said. “I know it’s not a full-size gym but it does accommodate six basketball goals.

“It is a pretty big gym, it’s not regulation size, but it’s not one of those cafeteria gyms.”

Garrett said the gym would be used to host many functions.

“It’s going to have basketball, and also you’ll be able to use the space as a large meeting room and for other recreational programs,” he said. “[For] anything that needs to hold a large group of people, it is open to the city of Long Branch.”

The total cost of the project is $1.7 million, and Garrett said about 80 percent is funded through the Hope VI grant and the remaining 20 percent by the Long Branch Housing Authority.

Garrett explained that the center would be used in conjunction with many area community service providers.

“We have community service providers that signed on with this when we took on the responsibility with Hope VI,” he said. “Those were community service providers that we worked with in the past, even before Bucky was being constructed.”

Garrett listed Prevention First, Monmouth Medical Center, Monmouth Family Health Center, Checkmate, Family and Children’s Services and Planned Parenthood as organizations the housing authority is planning to work with.

He also said that it is important that these organizations have a place where they can meet.

“The biggest thing they always look for is meeting space, a location where they can run their programs,” he said. “We are going to have that for them.

“Checkmate is going to be providing infant care at the facility,” he added. “We have a whole host of groups that have always worked with us and this is going to give them a location … where we can have things going on at the same time.

“They can be doing 20 different things at once and not interfere with each other because of the space.”

Garrett said the center will accommodate activities for diverse groups.

“The way the program works is it’s not just for kids, we are going to have some adult programming there too, whether it be a fitness class or something,” he said. “There is going to be something there for everybody.

“We are going to try our best to have programming for the whole entire city, from seniors to young people,” he added.

According to City Administrator Howard Woolley Jr., the Bucky James Community Center is named for a former Department of Public Works employee who ran the city’s recreational basketball program as a volunteer.

Garrett said that the city donated the land for the center to the housing authority.

“The city has been a big help for us, they contributed the land for this deal,” he said.

Garrett said that he expects the doors of the center to open shortly after construction is complete.

“I don’t know if that’s going to be the same date the doors actually open but it will be sometime in that area,” he said. “My office will do some kind of ribbon cutting, it will be somewhere between July 15 and Aug. 1.”

Garrett explained that the project is going to be completely done and will not be done in phases.

He also explained that the center would try to appeal to everyone in the community.

“The center is going to be open to the whole entire city of Long Branch and there is going to be programs that are going to be run through that center that people are going to be interested in,” he said.

Garrett said the final decision on programs that can use the center would be the housing authority’s.

“If anyone wants to come, they are more than welcome, and hopefully we will have a list of programs,” he said. “It is totally the housing authority’s decision.

“There may be a group or organization that may want to do an indoor soccer tournament, and we have the facility if they can’t get into one of the schools.

“All they have to do is come and talk to us and tell us what they want to do and we will figure out whether or not we can get it in there.”

Contact Kenny Walter at

kwalter@gmnews.com.