For generations, the Boys & Girls Club on Northwest 51st Street has been where a lot of Gainesville children learned to throw a baseball, make lifelong friends and find a safe place to hang out after school. Now, the community is fighting to save the property from being sold.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida is seeking to sell the Northwest Gainesville location, a property it received through a 2020 transfer from Boys & Girls Clubs of Alachua County. The property was acquired for $1 and included a $186,000 gift to support programming.
The property could sell for around $2.5 million.
Alachua County Commissioner Ken Cornell is leading local officials who say they will not support rezoning the property if a buyer plans to build apartments there.
“This Club is where our kids have learned how to live their life outside of a school environment,” Cornell said. “It’s where they learn athletics … life skills. It needs to stay that use.”
Vincent Hampton, a former Boys & Girls Clubs of Alachua County board member who helped oversee the 2020 transfer, said he never imagined the decision would become a source of concern for the community six years later.
“A lot of the idea was that it would open us up to more funding, more organizational structure,” Hampton said. “It really seemed like an opportunity.”
Hampton said the goal was to expand the club's ability to serve children throughout Alachua County.
“From our view, what it could mean and how it could grow the opportunities of us servicing and programming, it made sense,” Hampton said.
Over the years, Hampton said he has worked to promote the club using social media and raise money. Despite those efforts, he believes Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida did not do enough to support the Gainesville location.
“If you look at the last two years, I don’t even think the Club signed up for The Amazing Give,” Hampton said.
The Amazing Give is a 12-hour fundraising event that allows donors to support local nonprofits through a single online platform. Hosted by the Junior League of Gainesville, the 2025 event raised $1.2 million for 118 local nonprofits. During the 2018 event, the Boys & Girls Club credited The Amazing Give with helping fund a new roof.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida said financial challenges and a desire to direct more resources toward youth programming are driving its decision to sell the property.
The organization's financial records show it has operated at a deficit in recent years.
According to IRS Form 990 filings reviewed through ProPublica, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida reported approximately $24.1 million in revenue and $25.7 million in expenses for the fiscal year ending in July 2024, resulting in a deficit of about $1.5 million.
The year before, the nonprofit reported a loss of nearly $2.9 million. Financial information for 2025 is not yet publicly available.
The filings also show charitable contributions account for nearly all of the organization's revenue. In 2024, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida reported approximately $23.7 million in contributions, accounting for 98% of its total revenue.
WUFT reached out to the Boys & Girls Club for comment, but they declined. Instead, they sent a copy of a letter they sent to families.
In that letter, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida CEO Paul Martinez said the organization has invested in the Northwest Gainesville location through facility improvements, new buses, a Cox Communications Digital Literacy Lab, a backup generator and expanded youth programs.
“Our Alachua County operations have repeatedly operated at a deficit,” Martinez wrote. “Continuing on the same path would have required us to divert resources away from the programs and services that directly benefit children.”
Hampton sees the situation differently. He believes Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida failed to invest the resources needed to help the club grow.
“The Boys & Girls Club serves an already underserved community,” Hampton said.
Martinez said selling the property would allow the organization to focus its resources on programming while continuing to serve youth in Alachua County.
Cornell said he spoke directly with Martinez about the proposed sale.
“What he said is they want to continue to do programming in Alachua County, just not at that place,” Cornell said. “My point was, that place is important.”
The agreement between the two organizations included a restriction preventing the property from being sold within 10 years unless certain conditions were met. Those conditions included the property being destroyed by an act of God or the sale furthering the best interests of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida or local programming.
However, the agreement also includes an exception allowing a sale if the organization determines, “in its reasonable discretion,” that the transaction is in the financial best interest of the organization or necessary for the continuation of programs serving youth in Alachua County.
For Cornell, the bigger question is what happens to the resources that came from the Gainesville community.
“I believe that the Club from Northeast Florida should either invest or return resources to Alachua County that have left this community,” Cornell said. “If they receive any amount of money from the sale of this property, I would hope they would reinvest that money back into this community.”
“That’s who gave it to them, this community,” Cornell added.
Community members have rallied since news of the proposed sale became public. Residents have written letters voicing their frustrations and say they are not ready to let go of a place that has meant so much to generations of Gainesville families.
“The only time I’ve heard of them coming up with a plan is in response to us shining a light on this,” Hampton said. “They very much were hoping to do this on the low, so that way we only found out about it after the sale was closed and it would be too late.”
Residents are fighting to preserve not only a building, but the experiences they had there and the memories they have watched their children create.
Cornell is one of them.
“When I was four years old my dad was taking me to the Boys Club and teaching me how to play baseball,” Cornell said. “That was 53 years ago.”