ASBURY PARK - The Westside Community Center was previously a hub that helped produce everything this city needed, from musicians, workers, nurses and doctors to pastors, athletes and actors. Now, the site might soon become a hub that produces carpenters, union labor and opportunities.
Felicia Simmons, a lifelong resident who serves as president of the Westside Community Center Renovation Association, has been renovating the historic building and is currently in talks to bring in the carpenters' union to help finish renovations and set up a local labor hub to provide more opportunity.
"Let's have a community presence in terms of like a recruitment center, an educational center," said Anthony Abrantes, who serves as the assistant executive secretary-treasurer for the Eastern Atlantic State Regional Council of Carpenters. "If there is an appetite from folks in the community, young folks coming out of high school or going through middle school to get an understanding of what construction is or what union membership looks like, we want to be there to have those conversations,"
The council represents approximately 43,000 union carpenters across New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Virginia and West Virginia.
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"I am thinking, in the long term, (of) actually building out something in the community center where we can start preparing those folks for the construction industry through pre-apprenticeship," Abrantes said. "We have an apprenticeship program already, whether it is Edison or Hammonton, so we don't need to reinvent the wheel there."
Last year, the Asbury Park School District started working with the city, local unions and the Asbury Park Housing Authority to implement a trades curriculum for high school students, and any city projects that cost $5 million or more will use union labor and/or hire mostly local residents at a union rate after the city council approved a pre-labor agreement.
"Making sure whatever barriers might be precluding (the Westside Community Center) from construction, between the carpenter's union and Felicia (Simmons) we overcome that first, that seems to be the biggest challenge and collectively we can hopefully overcome those challenges," Abrantes said.
The Westside Community Center had long been a gathering place and trusted space for Asbury Park and Neptune residents. The house component of the center was owned by the first Black practicing doctor in Asbury Park, William J. Parks, who donated his house to the community in 1942, and the gym component was built later.
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Over the next several decades, the Westside Community Center offered job training, as well as drum and bugle corps, marching drill teams, Boy and Girl Scout troops, Bible study, afterschool programming, tutorials, daycare, dance, community talent shows and eventually computer literacy courses.
Simmons became president of the Westside Community Center in the summer of 2022 while she ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Asbury Park. Simmons said she was told the first phase of restoring the building would cost an estimated $300,000, including a new roof and floors.
"Phase one is literally let's make that main building/administrative building accessible to the public, where people feel comfortable coming in and doing all the volunteer work necessary through the local unions to bring that up to code and up to speed," Abrantes said.
All the work needed to the complete the renovations will be volunteer. Admittedly, depending on unpaid volunteers slows down the timeline of when to expect the community center to reopen and start producing new skilled carpenters.
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Finding someone to pay for materials remains a challenge. "I think (if) we start laying the groundwork and building this out, the first floor will get done pretty quickly," Abrantes said. "The gym itself obviously needs to be brought up to code and waterproofed because it doesn't have a roof on it now."
Once the gym gets a roof, they can use the open floor concept for educational purposes.
"I think that is when you are going to start seeing some of the soft skills, nonpower tools training, where people can come in and start learning the business through a pre-apprenticeship program," Abrantes said. "I think once that happens you'll start seeing a pipeline of folks coming directly out of Asbury Park."
He added he hopes they will join the carpenters union following the program, but "if they want to go into another trade, more power to them, but at least the opportunity was there."
Simmons said there is always a need for people that can build "and that is historically what our community does."
"Our community needs access," she said. "Between the historic African-American community, the Black/brown community and the union we are in a great space right now to building something that is permanent and impactful."
Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park Westside Community Center could get carpenter union help
