After almost a decade of planning, work has started on the new $36.7 million Oscar Johnson Jr. Community Center in Conroe.
City leaders held a brief ceremony on the site at 710 Foster Drive Thursday to mark the start of construction on the 87,000-square-foot facility. The first phase of the project is set for completion in fall 2024.
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After taking time to thank the city council, leaders of the parks and recreation department and the advisory board for the Oscar Johnson Jr. Community Center, Ruby Johnson, the widow of Oscar Johnson Jr. said they are just getting started with future plans for the center. Johnson also serves as president of the center’s advisory board.
“This is just the first phase. We have a long way to go. Don’t put down your wings yet. We are so thankful to God for what he has allowed us to do,” Johnson said. “Roll up your sleeves and let’s get ready to work.”
Oscar Johnson Jr. was Conroe’s first Black city councilman. He served on the council from 1975 through 1989, serving as mayor pro tem in 1977 and 1978. The Johnson family also operates the Collins & Johnson Funeral Home in Conroe.
Johnson called her late husband a real people person and he served the community in a variety of ways until his death in May 1993 at age 52.
His legacy continues on with the current community center at 100 Park Place in Conroe that is named in his memory. It is still undetermined how the city will use this facility when the new building opens.
City leaders expressed the desire to expand the center for some times with this expansion being in the works for the past nine years.
According to a city document on the project, feasibility studies were conducted in 2014 by LMA Design and 2018 by Burditt Consultants to determine the need for additional recreation facilities in Conroe. Both studies brought to light the extraordinary growth of the city and associated citizens’ needs and demands for community and recreational programs and the need for a unified campus.
The city purchased 75 acres between South Loop 336 and Foster Drive and designated 25 acres for the new Oscar Johnson Jr. Community Center.
Features of the facility and property will include 310 parking spots, outdoor amenities such as a pavilion, look-out pier and walking trails, a fitness center with two gyms, an indoor track and various fitness equipment, space for childcare for the city’s after-school, holiday and Mother’s Day out program, community meeting spaces and program spaces for art, dance and sports.
There are plans for additional amenities, including a pool. These amenities will be considered in future phases of the project.
Design for the project comes from Conroe firm Burditt Consultants and Brookstone Construction is building the facility.
Brookstone Construction also completed the remodel on the C.K. Ray Recreation Center a few years back.
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“I’ve been to a lot of ground breakings, but there’s something really special about what’s going on here,” said Jeremy Stovall, president of Brookstone Construction. “This project epitomizes impact in the lives of people. At this place they’ll learn, they’ll recreate, they’ll develop, they’ll build relationships and they’ll celebrate milestones. What an opportunity for all of us to be a part of that.”
For more information about the project, visit the city’s Oscar Johnson Jr. Community Center’s website.
