Five Towns Community Center to get a new operator, long-term lease

Nassau County plans to enter into a long-term lease with a new operator at the Five Towns Community Center in Inwood, County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced Wednesday.

The Marion & Aaron Gural Jewish Community Center will build and operate a new facility on the site of the center and run it in coordination with the Police Athletic League, which will operate a new county-funded gymnasium.

The Nassau County Police Department also will run its “Operation Overwatch” program from the site. The program deploys patrol cars that aren't attached to existing precincts. 

The center's previous operator, The Five Towns Community Center Inc., had operated in the facility under a 50-year lease since 1974, paying $1 in annual rent, according to an audit filed with the federal government. 

“It's not going to be a diminution of services, it's going to be an addition of services to make this a better community and to make it safer and healthier,” Blakeman said at a news conference. The new center also will “give our kids an outlet where they can go play and have a good time in a safe, healthy environment.”

Blakeman said the new facility will take about two years to complete, including six months of planning before construction starts. He said the county will spend between $5 million and $10 million on the gymnasium, while the JCC will spend more than $10 million on the community center.

Construction of the facility will be done in stages so that an existing Head Start childhood education program can continue to operate, he said, before the existing building is "taken down."

The county had issued a request for proposals for an operator of the center, and the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC and the Lawrence school district each submitted bids, Newsday reported last year. Neither proposal was accepted, Nassau County spokesman Chris Boyle said Wednesday.

A handout from the JCC given at the news conference emphasized its Jewish orientation.

“A new state-of-the art facility will enable us to grow and expand our programs that are tailored to the needs and interests of the community, emphasize family enrichment, Jewish identity, and community engagement,” the handout said.

Blakeman said the center would serve all residents.

“It's going to be secular as far as the whole site is concerned,” he said. “I want to stress it's open to everybody in the community regardless of your race, religion, ethnic group, abilities or lifestyles. We are a welcoming community and the county would not make an investment but for the fact that it's open to everybody.”

Gural JCC executive director Stacey Feldman said the center would provide a range of services to the community in English, Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian.

“We know that exercise and physical fitness is very important for mental health so we want to be able to have different types of yoga classes, the indoor pool, walking tracks, basketball courts, pickleball, all of those amenities,” Feldman said. The center also will have programs for children for after school, homework assistance and tutoring.

It will also have programs for seniors to make sure they’re not isolated, she said.

“We want to make sure that people are not sitting home alone when they could be here learning a new skill, meeting with their contemporaries, having a communal lunch together,” Feldman said. It will operate a kosher food pantry on the site, she said.

Programs at the center under the previous operator included services in English and Spanish for immigrants seeking citizenship and access to government programs, youth programs, food security and child education. The county did not renew The Five Towns Community Center Inc.'s lease, which expired in July. Blakeman told Newsday early last year that the county would not renew that lease. At the time, he cited issues with disrepair and maintenance. 

The county and the JCC are in negotiations on the terms of the new lease, which Blakeman said would be more than 40 years, and which Feldman said would be between 40 and 60 years.