Heading along Southern Boulevard through West Palm Beach, drivers probably can’t help but notice the large construction site on what used to be a green cluster of banyan trees in Dreher Park.
What for seven decades was city-owned park space is making way for a new center for the Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach County.
Community leaders celebrated a groundbreaking in March for the 31,000-square-foot center, which will feature a gym, computer labs, a cafeteria and an outdoor playground.
It will serve an estimated 220 children a day and will be open 2-8 p.m. on school days and 7 a.m.-6 p.m. on weekdays during the summer, the organization said.
The city commission made way for the new facility in 2023 when it agreed to designate 1.7 acres in the park as surplus so the Boys and Girls Clubs could build the facility.
The new center, which will be called the Julie & Mike Connors Boys & Girls Club, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2026.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
See more construction photos and artist renderings of new West Palm Beach’s Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach County
March 2025 groundbreaking of the Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County in West Palm Beach’s Dreher Park
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: What’s being built there? Boys and Girls Club center rising in West Palm’s Dreher Park
Reporting by Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
