Woodland Heights Community Resource Center

Pensacola, Florida

Local community center focuses on arts education, while still providing traditional recreational offerings.

 

“Children can play basketball and football anywhere,” said Walter Wallace, a neighborhood leader in the Woodland Heights residential subdivision area of Pensacola.  Established in the late 1950’s, the area has increasingly seen gang activity and problems near low-income housing complexes.  “But there are so few arts and culture programs for our children,” continued Wallace.  “This will give them an outlet to try ballet, opera, learn to paint, draw, act, whatever.”

 

With the challenge of making the performing arts the primary focus of the new facility, a large multipurpose auditorium was provided with a stage for plays, orchestral concerts, and ballets.  It can also be available for basketball games by swinging down goals.  Backstage access is provided to the stage, as well as dressing rooms and support spaces.  A large, sub-dividable multi-purpose room, a computer resource room, a fitness room, and warming kitchen facilities are also provided.  Outside, valuable oak trees on the site were preserved as much as possible, and families can sit on the grass to watch films projected on a large “movie wall.”