HOLDEN HEIGHTS, Fla. — Community members cut the ribbon of the new Holden Heights Community Center on Wednesday morning.
The community center was relocated because the building was in the path of the I-4 Ultimate Improvement Project.
"With the expansion and everything, it would have been right on top of our heads if we would have stayed there, so this is great," Holden Heights Center Manager Claudette Grubbs said.
The new 10,000-square-foot center includes meeting rooms, computers and space for vocational programs and community events.
"It's like moving from day to night, night to day," center senior John Smith. "We had to turn people away because we had no room, but now thanks be to god it's open and the sky is the limit."
The center will offer job training, social service programs and senior and youth programs.
Grubbs said there was talk of a new center for years, but the I-4 Project helped speed it up because the Florida Department of Transportation needed the land.
Residents said the new center gives them a new sense of belonging in the county and the city.
"It says that we are here, we matter, we count. We knew we did, but not everyone knows that we do," resident Dedra Jenkins said. "We were getting the last of everything. Now we get to come to the table and we're treated as equal now, and that means a lot."
The state paid about $800,000 for the old property off Interstate 4, about 20 percent of the cost of the new center, which costs $3.5 million.