CORE Construction breaks ground on $59M Pompey Park rebuild

Delray Beach breaks ground September 10 on a new Pompey Park Recreation Center, a two-story, roughly 54,000-square-foot facility that will replace the existing 22,823-square-foot community center on the same site. CORE Construction is the general contractor, working under a guaranteed maximum price the city commission approved 4-1 in June at $59,193,363, a figure city officials say landed nearly $4 million under the original cost estimate.

Why it matters

Public construction contracts are one of the few places hard costs get disclosed in dollars and cents, with a named contractor and a scope attached. A GMP that comes in under estimate on a project this size is a real signal for anyone bidding similar public work in South Florida right now, not a marketing line. It also shows how the delivery method worked in practice: CORE was not hired to build first. The city brought CORE on in May 2025 under a $212,371 construction-manager-at-risk contract to help develop the design and pricing, then locked the GMP more than a year later once that preconstruction work was done. That sequence, price the job before you commit to it, is the playbook other municipalities in South Florida are increasingly following on civic buildings.

The numbers

The guaranteed maximum price is $59,193,363, approved by the Delray Beach City Commission on a 4-1 vote in June. CORE Construction’s earlier CMAR services contract, awarded under RFQ 2024-031, was worth $212,371. The new building will run roughly 54,000 square feet across two stories, more than double the 22,823-square-foot center it replaces, and is designed to withstand Category 5 hurricane winds and serve as a shelter. Planned amenities include a gymnasium, an indoor running track, a community pool, playgrounds, fitness and multipurpose rooms, and expanded parking.

What’s next

The groundbreaking ceremony is set for Thursday, September 10 at 5 p.m. at Pompey Park, 1101 NW 2nd Street. The city held a community shovel-painting event in late August ahead of the ceremony. From here, the story shifts to execution: whether CORE holds that GMP through a multi-year build in a market where labor and materials costs have not been static, and how much disruption the work causes to a facility the city says currently sees about 150,000 visits a year.