[Archived] City of Alexandria Schedules Ground Breaking Ceremony for the New Charles Houston Recreation Center

City Press Release


	For Immediate Release	For More Information, Contact
	September 12, 2007 PIO# 223-07/sjm	Steve Mason, Director of Communications, at 703.838.4300

City of Alexandria Schedules Ground Breaking Ceremony for the
New Charles Houston Recreation Center

The Alexandria City Council, the Alexandria Parks and Recreation Commission, the Charles Houston Advisory Council and community members from the Charles Houston and Inner City neighborhoods will break ground for the new Charles Houston Recreation Center on Saturday, September 15 at 8:30 am at 901 Wythe St. The public is invited to the groundbreaking and the community celebration that will follow.

The ground breaking kicks off a $15 million City-funded capital project that will provide for the demolition of the current 30 year-old community center and the construction of a new 35,000 square foot state of the art community center that is designed to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver rating.

The new center, scheduled to open in late winter of 2009, will incorporate green building features such as a vegetated green roof, and energy efficient HVAC systems and lighting. The center will provide the community with a new gymnasium, dance room, fitness room, boxing room, children's game room, computer lab, small outdoor swimming pool, senior center, preschool program, and a community meeting room.

The recreation center is located on the former site of the first Parker-Gray School on Wythe Street, which was demolished in the early 1980s. Charles Houston, for whom the recreation center was named, was an attorney of national reputation, and a seminal figure in the civil rights movement. He used his expertise and influence to bring educational opportunity to Alexandria’s African American community. Houston (who later became Dean of Howard University Law School) authored a legal brief that was used by his prot�g�, Thurgood Marshall, to win Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that helped to end racial segregation in American schools.

The Alexandria Commission for the Arts, through its Public Art Committee, is organizing a series of community outreach activities to obtain community input on what type of public art should be located in the pedestrian plaza at the Charles Houston Recreation Center. The public art, which will honor Charles Houston for his civil rights work, will be selected in a competition sponsored by the Commission on the Arts.

The Charles Houston Recreation Center is served by DASH transit bus lines #AT 3 and the #AT 3-4 loop from the Braddock Road Metrorail station. For DASH schedule information, call 703.370.DASH (3274) or visit www.dashbus.com. For Metrorail and Metrobus schedule information, call 202.637.7000 or visit www.wmata.com.

The City of Alexandria is committed to compliance with the City’s Human Rights Code and the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation or to request materials in an alternative format, call Leslie Clark, Division Chief at 703.838.4812 (TTY 703.838.4902), or e-mail leslie.clark@alexandriava.gov.

For additional information regarding the ground breaking ceremony, and the temporary relocation of the center programs and activities, please call the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities’ Recreation Services Division Office at 703.838.4812.

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