"It was a safe haven," Cheryl Pompey-Howard told WLRN in September. She was describing the park named for her father, the educator C. Spencer Pompey. She spoke after the City of Delray Beach and the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency held a groundbreaking at 1101 NW 2nd Street on September 10, 2026. That ceremony started a rebuild of roughly $59 million.
The doors at Pompey Park stay open through construction. The city's own Pompey Park facility page says the community center "will remain open and fully operational" during construction, and the park grounds will close off and on as work moves around the site. City officials told WLRN that the existing building stays in service until the new recreation center is finished in 2028. The full park renovation is due in 2029.
The old center keeps working until the new one is ready to take over. That order decides what you can use this winter, and it also decides when the concession stand by the ball fields, the most debated small piece of a $59.2 million contract, comes down.
What is open on a weekday afternoon right now
For the 2026–27 season, the existing center runs on its usual schedule.
- Monday through Friday: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Saturday: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- Sunday: 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
- Front desk: (561) 243-7356
The park covers 17.5 acres. The city lists a gymnasium, an auditorium with a stage, a full kitchen, meeting rooms, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, lighted tennis and racquetball courts, a pickleball court, a baseball diamond, a Little League field, lighted pitching and batting cages, a press box, a playground and a picnic pavilion. The Pompey Park Pool sits next to the recreation center and has both a swimming pool and a wading pool. Programs on the city's list include youth football and cheerleading, along with out-of-school programs and camps.
The phrase that matters for outdoor plans is "intermittent closures," and the city's notice does not say which courts or fields close when. Before you book a pavilion or plan a practice on the grounds, call the front desk or check the city facility page.
What the finished park adds, side by side
The new center is not a refresh of the old building. It more than doubles its size. The city's 2025 construction scope describes the current community center as a one-story, 22,823-square-foot building and the new one as two stories and 54,191 square feet.
| Today | Planned | |
|---|---|---|
| Main building | One story, 22,823 sq ft | Two stories, 54,191 sq ft |
| Indoor recreation | Gymnasium, auditorium with stage, full kitchen, meeting rooms | Gymnasium with indoor running track, fitness room, dance and aerobics room, multipurpose room, meeting rooms, kitchen |
| Aquatics | Swimming pool and wading pool | Family pool, plus a competition pool with bleachers |
| Outdoors | Baseball diamond, Little League field, batting cages, courts, playground, picnic pavilion | Baseball fields, basketball courts, playgrounds, multipurpose field, surface parking |
| Storm role | Not listed | Planned hurricane shelter and staging site for city personnel; project site calls it Category 5-rated |
The indoor running track is the item the city put first in its groundbreaking announcement, ahead of the family pool, playground and multipurpose field. The storm role is the bigger change for the wider city. A building meant to shelter people and stage city staff during a hurricane has to be fully built before it can do either job. That gives the city one more reason to finish the new center before taking down the old one.
How a $40 million estimate became a $59.2 million contract
The project dates to January 2018, when the design team started a site inventory and analysis. A concept design, master plan, pre-design report and schematic design followed. The price came together much later, and in stages.
- April 2024: The CRA estimated pre-construction cost at $40 million, allocated in its FY 2023–24 budget.
- May 20, 2025: The City Commission hired CORE Construction as construction manager at risk for preconstruction services, at $212,371.
- Initial construction offer: about $65.8 million, according to staff.
- After value engineering, bid leveling and alternates: $63.3 million.
- After further negotiation: about $59.39 million.
- After CORE withdrew a preconstruction services invoice: a guaranteed maximum price of $59,193,363.
The 2024 figure was an early estimate, not a matching quote for the same scope. The more useful comparison is between the first $65.8 million offer and the final number, a reduction of roughly $6.6 million. As Boca Post reported staff's breakdown, about $44 million is hard construction cost, about $10 million is general conditions and management, and $2,435,000 is the construction manager's fee, set at 4.5 percent. WLRN reports the city put just over $5 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money toward design and infrastructure.
The vote on June 9, 2026, was 4-1. Deputy Vice Mayor Tom Markert, Commissioner Judy Mollica, Vice Mayor Angela Burns and Mayor Thomas Carney voted yes, and Commissioner Juli Casale voted no. Before the vote, the commission weighed a late letter from another company claiming it could cut about $4.2 million. Staff said switching would likely mean a new contract, another round of bidding and bid leveling, and at least five months of delay even in the best case. Burns pointed out that the community had waited decades for this work. Mollica asked whether the promised savings would hold up once hard costs were reviewed. The commission kept the schedule.
The concession stand comes down near the end
The building that drew the most public comment was not the new center. It was the concession stand by the ball fields. A park user told the commission that the stand also holds storage, offices, meeting space and batting-cage functions tied to baseball at the park.
Staff's answer follows the same build-first order as the rest of the project. CORE agreed to demolish the stand at no charge, but not at the start. It stays until the new community center is built and the old center is ready to come down. After that, staff said, the city plans to plant grass over the site and bring in a restroom trailer. A concession trailer is possible if the community asks for one.
A permanent replacement is a separate decision and a separate city cost. CORE would waive its management fee to oversee one. Staff noted that the city already has design plans from the concession stand and press box built at Little Fenway in 2017, and said nothing would be decided without working with the people who use the fields. For youth baseball families, the stand they use this season and next is the current one. The replacement question will come back around the time the old center comes down.
Who built the first one, and who is building this one
The city traces the park to 1950, when C. Spencer Pompey started one of Delray Beach's first recreational programs for Black students. The city bought the land in 1978 and opened a recreation center in his name. According to WLRN's September 10 report, Pompey worked with NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall in 1942 and won a federal equal-pay case against the Palm Beach County School Board over a $25-a-month gap between the salaries of white and Black teachers. At the groundbreaking, the city brought out ceremonial shovels painted by community members and city commissioners, each decorated with artwork about Delray Beach and the park's history.
The project team includes CORE, Randolph Construction Group, Hatcher Construction & Development, KEITH & Associates and Justin Architects. The city sends project questions to the REACH GROUP at (561) 501-0737 or [email protected]. Construction updates appear on the Pompey Park Project site, which lists the same completion dates: the recreation center in 2028 and the full park in 2029.
If you want to talk through what the rebuild means for a home near NW 2nd Street, Vlasek Real Estate Group is glad to help, with the same care we bring to every Delray Beach address. Request Your Personalized Consultation.
