Politics & Government

Breaking New Ground at Plum Gar

Groundbreaking ceremony held Saturday at Plum Gar Community Recreation Center

Editor's Note: This post was originally published January 7, 2012.

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A ceremonial groundbreaking Saturday marked the beginning of an $8.5 million “facelift” in Germantown.

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“We’ve been waiting on this day for years,” said Robin DeBerry-Woodard, president of the community center’s advisory committee.

Community leaders, state lawmakers, county officials and neighbors helped crack the soil outside Plum Gar Community Recreation Center. Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett said the east Germantown recreation center was overdue for an update.

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“It has taken too long,” Leggett said during Saturday’s ceremony. “We are going to make it right. And we start with this new facility for people who deserve it, and need it and have waited too long. I want to correct that.”

Plum Gar has been closed pending updates since December 2010.

The center is scheduled to reopen in Summer 2013 more than twice as big, with the gym as the only trace of the old structure, according to David Dise, Director of the county’s Department of General Services.

The new building will have a game room, a weight and exercise room, and a multipurpose room, plus a 150-seat social hall, conference room, catering kitchen and computer lab.

Hercules Twine Sr., the center’s former director, said the computer lab used to be in a trailer located next to the main building. DeBerry-Woodard said the rec center only had one bathroom.

“We are looking forward to our new faceflift,” DeBerry-Woodard said.

Montgomery County acquired Plum Gar from the Housing Opportunities Commission in 1986, according to Gabriel Albernoz, director of the Department of Recreation. The county added the modular classroom building to provide more space, but it wasn’t enough to keep up with the community’s growth and demand, Albernoz said.

The overhaul was budgeted in the county’s capital improvement projects list for 2011-16, with $8.2 million coming from General Obligation bonds and $250,000 from state aid, according to information provided the county’s General Services Division.

State Sen. Nancy J. King (D-Dist. 39, Montgomery County), chairwoman of the senate’s Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families, was instrumental in getting the state funds. On Saturday, King was joined by Del. Charles E. Barkley (D-Dist. 39, Montgomery County) and Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Dist. 39, Montgomery County), lawmakers who were involved in the process.

“At that time, we knew the money was tight and was going to get tighter,” King said, “but after coming and seeing the activity in this center — as small as it was — we knew we needed to do something in order to make it grow.”

Staffs members of Montgomery County Councilman Craig Rice (D-Dist. 2) and Councilman Marc Elrich (D-At large) also attended.


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