More than four years after Hurricane Florence, Jack Amyette Recreation Center to reopen
A staple in the Jacksonville community is finally reopening over four years after major damage was done to it by Hurricane Florence.
The Jack Amyette Recreation Center sits nestled in the middle of Town Center Apartments, a residential area in the New River community that houses predominantly lower-income Black families, according to reporting by The Daily News in 2020.
Prior reporting added the building has been a staple in the area, providing its residents, particularly the youth, a place to play basketball and engage in other activities after school and on the weekends.
More than four years after Hurricane Florence severely damaged its gym, the city of Jacksonville has completed Jack Amyette's $5.2 million construction project and will reopen to the public on Wednesday, Feb. 15.
"We are thrilled," said Jacksonville Director of Recreation Services Susan Baptist. "From the devastation of having that damage, to the concepts of what we were going to do, to the approval of the funding, to the actual construction, it's taken every bit of the four years to get where we are and I'm just so thrilled that we are able to officially open back up to the community and be back in full swing of things. So so exciting."
More:Officials clarify $1M grant for damaged Jack Amyette gym
Baptist said the facility is new and improved, not to mention bigger. She said the facility is going to provide a ton of opportunities for a lot more recreation and athletics to take place.
The gym itself has been expanded. Baptist said it's now a high school regulation-sized gym, which she said will allow the city to provide more games and sports.
"Before, the gym was smaller, it was a 60-year-old gym, so we couldn't do as much as we can now," Baptist said. "We have two full-sized cross courts as far as basketball goes. We have two volleyball courts, which we would never have been able to do. The ceiling before wasn't high enough for volleyball. And we have three pickleball courts."
Baptist added the new and improved center will allow basketball and volleyball leagues to play there. She said they're also in the process of purchasing some fitness equipment for people to utilize.
Additionally, Jack Amyette will soon bring back youth and teen programs. Baptist said they're still fleshing out what the schedule will look like, and she added they will certainly have summer programs too.
"We are working on our program schedule but rest assured, we will try and keep it busy and full and available to anybody who wants to utilize it," Baptist said.
Jacksonville City Councilman Brian Jackson grew up in the area and said when he was younger, if you were going to play any sport in the county, you went through Jack Amyette. He said it kept him and his friends from doing things they had no business doing.
He added the people of Town Center and New River haven't been taken care of in a long time.
The affordable housing complex has sparked controversy over the last couple of years, according to prior The Daily News reporting, due to many tenants being forced to move out of the condemned complex, which was subjected to toxic mold, roach infestations and more.
More recently, tenants have run into major problems and conflicts with new ownership.
"I hope, regardless of what happens in New River, that our families, our young people, from no matter where they are, can still come out there and we can have programs at Jack Amyette," Jackson said, adding many of the coaches he had growing up were also teachers, and helped so many kids become men and women.
Jackson said he hopes Jack Amyette can help deter young folks from going down the wrong path. He added the facility will also provide shelter to the community in case of hurricanes or bad storms.
The Jacksonville area has a deficit when it comes to recreation space, Jackson said, and for those in the Town Center area, Jack Amyette was all they had, so it's important that it's back.
"I think we could stop a lot of bad things from happening to our children if we get into their lives before bad things happen," Jackson said.
The city will be hosting an open house at Jack Amyette on Wednesday. Baptist said they wanted to have an open situation where the community can come and check out the new center, and she encourages all to come and share their feedback.
The open house will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday. Then, starting Thursday, the center will be open for the public officially.
"We were very fortunate," Baptist said. "In 2020, we really had to do some soul-searching and digging into what it is we were going to do for the community, so we did a lot of surveys and we tried to garner what it is the citizens wanted. We presented our options and what we might be able to do to council."
The city then applied for a federal grant, which they were awarded in the amount of $1 million, a huge help in offsetting the cost of the over $5 million project. The city also received a $750,000 insurance settlement for the center.
Baptist said all of 2020 was spent doing preliminary work behind the scenes, and they were then able to land on a design that was going to best suit the city's longevity as far as what they could provide in a facility. Council then approved the designs and then entered into contract with Bordeaux Construction, who got to work.
"They started in July 2021, and it took give or take a year," Baptist said. "They finished, for the most part, right before Christmas of this past year. We had some things to finalize. In addition to the rec center, there was also a maintenance building built in the back, so it was actually two buildings that were constructed."
The city got Jack Amyette's certificate of occupancy a couple of weeks ago and hope to see lots of faces as they begin serving the community at the center once again.
Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@jdnews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily News: More than four years after Hurricane Florence, Jack Amyette Recreation Center to reopen
