Port St. Lucie Civic Center

City officials opened today a $25 million civic center in the heart of eastern Port St. Lucie. The civic center, a grand building in warm tones of squash and buttercream, will serve as an anchor, they hope, to a greater downtown-style development to rival any in West Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale.

“This is the beginning of a new era in our city’s history,” said Mayor Patricia Christensen.

The Port St. Lucie Civic Center, which sits at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Walton Road, is a 100,000-square-foot facility with a plaza for concerts and shows, an art gallery, an expansive lobby, a grand ballroom, a conference hall, a fitness center, full-court gymnasium, on-site catering and a cafe.

Several hundred people gathered today at 10 a.m. for the official ribbon-cutting and opening of the civic center, including city, county, school and state officials, both past and present. Applause erupted as the mayor and city council members cut a white ribbon with gold-handled scissors.

St. Lucie County Commissioner Doug Coward gave a one-word description of the new center: “Fabulous.”

Coward tried out a ping-pong table in the facility’s game room, playing a few friendly rounds with his father, Walt Coward.

“It’s the biggest investment in the east side of the city ever,” he said.

Tags: civic center

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Community events, Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.