Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Community Center opens

November 23, 2021 - Construction Design & Engineering

Brooklyn, NY Mayor de Blasio, New York City Economic Development Corp. (NYCEDC), members of the Owens family, and elected leaders celebrated the grand opening of the Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Community Center. The 60,000 s/f retrofitted drill shed will serve Crown Heights as a neighborhood recreation center, complete with a 25-meter, six-lane competitive swimming pool, basketball courts, and a multi-purpose court able to accommodate a wide variety of sports, including soccer and community programming.

“Investing in our people and communities, especially in ones that have often been overlooked, is how we build a recovery for all of us,” said mayor de Blasio. “The Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Community Center will provide New Yorkers a place to thrive and grow for generations to come.”

The Major Owens Center will also welcome a variety of tenants to provide the following services and community programming at an accessible rate. With 35,000 s/f of office space for nonprofits, members will have access to a number of Brooklyn community-based organizations that will be permanently housed at the Center, including the Boys’ Club of New York as the operator of the gym at the center, providing high quality and diverse programming to the community.

The Major Owens Center also has an onsite cogen plant, which will meet all of the project’s heating, cooling and electrical demand, effectively taking the entire 500,000 s/f project off the ConEd grid, and providing safe haven to the community during brownouts or blackouts during periods of extreme heat.

Other local groups offering classes and programs include Imagine Swimming, Inc.; New Heights Youth; Brooklyn Pride; Digital Girl, Inc.; Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy; Globall Sports Center; and Betty Carter Auditorium for the Arts (BCAA). The partners who operate classes, camps, and programs at the Major R. Owens Health & Wellness Community Center will work to ensure that their offerings are available to those across the Crown Heights community.

Also part of the Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Community Center project is 415 units of housing, 60% of which will be much needed affordable housing for low income New Yorkers, as well as a 25,000 square-foot health center, run by Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center. These projects are expected to be completed by 2023.

“The Major R. Owens Health & Wellness Center is rooted in community and is for the community,” said NYCEDC president & CEO Rachel Loeb. “NYCEDC and our partners worked hard to deliver a recreational center that captured former Congressman Major Owens’ vision, a place where people of all ages, all walks of life and from different communities could come together and have access to critical services and programming that open doors to opportunity. Now, children, families and seniors can benefit from this center for years to come and be inspired when they walk inside. We thank the Mayor, the State, Majority Leader Cumbo, BFC Partners, the Community Advisory Committee, our nonprofits, and all who worked on and supported this project.”

The wellness center is now open to the public. Standard memberships for the gym within the center cost $30 per month, while seniors and low-income adults below the 200% Federal Poverty Level can join for $10 per month and youth memberships are as little as $8 per month. Additionally, 50% of memberships will be discounted to $10 per month for residents who live in Community Board 9.