The Boys & Girls Clubs of America annually serve 4.3 million young people annually, through membership and community outreach, in 4,300 Clubs across the country and BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide.
On April 26, the organization’s Austin, Texas, area club (BGCAA) held a grand opening for its 32,000-sf headquarters—known as its Home Club—on 10 acres in East Austin. The new facility will allow the organization to serve an additional 1,000 youth, and address challenges for economically disadvantaged local children who lack a place to go after school and during other out-of-school times.
More than 105,000 youth in the Austin market still lack free or affordable programming after school each day, according to the BGCAA, which prior to this opening was serving about 7,500 registered club members ages 6 through 18 years old at 36 locations in two counties.
The new two-story facility houses the BGCAA’s administrative offices, representing the first time in this market that those offices have been combined with the space for kids.
Children can get between floors by stairs or by sliding down a spiral ramp. Image: Tre Dunham
The site on which the club is located is called the Sheth Family Campus, so named in recognition of a multimillion donation made to BGCAA by Adria and Brian Sheth, founders of The Sheth Sangreal Foundation. The club’s indoor athletic facility is named in honor of St David’s Foundation, which donated $1 million.
An anonymous donor provided an additional $1 million, with numerous other significant donations from leading community and business leaders. Fourteen donors kicked in between $100,000 and $999,999 each.
The $14 million club, for which SpawGlass Contractors was the GC, includes a STEM learning center, library, art studios, teen center, and indoor-outdoor sports facilities. STG Design, an Austin-based architecture and design firm, provided the building’s interior design. STG donated a total of $250,000 worth of in-kind services throughout the duration of the project, which broke ground on April 17, 2018.
Themes of openness and honesty informed the design, whose exposed beams, open duct work and lighting grid serve as a teaching tool for showing children have things go together. The roofline is modeled after a traditional home so that building blends in with the surrounding community.
(The land the club now sits on was once zoned for single-family and light residential use, according to the Austin-American Stateman.)
Related Stories
Giants 400 | Aug 20, 2022
Top 180 Architecture Firms for 2022
Gensler, Perkins and Will, HKS, and Perkins Eastman top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture firms for nonresidential and multifamily buildings work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Giants 400 | Aug 19, 2022
2022 Giants 400 Report: Tracking the nation's largest architecture, engineering, and construction firms
Now 46 years running, Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report rankings the largest architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. This year a record 519 AEC firms participated in BD+C's Giants 400 report. The final report includes more than 130 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.
Cultural Facilities | Aug 5, 2022
A time and a place: Telling American stories through architecture
As the United States enters the year 2026, it will commence celebrating a cycle of Sestercentennials, or 250th anniversaries, of historic and cultural events across the land.
Museums | Jun 28, 2022
The California Science Center breaks grounds on its Air and Space Center
The California Science Center—a hands-on science center in Los Angeles—recently broke ground on its Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.
Headquarters | Jun 21, 2022
Walmart combines fitness and wellness in associates’ center that’s part of its new Home Office plan
Duda | Paine’s design leads visitors on a “journey.”
Cultural Facilities | Jun 15, 2022
Gehry-designed Children’s Institute aims to foster community outreach in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood
The Children’s Institute (CII) in Los Angeles will open a 200,000-sf campus designed by Frank Gehry this summer.
Cultural Facilities | Jun 10, 2022
After 10 Years, Taiwan’s new Taipei Music Center Reaches the Finish Line
RUR Architecture has finished the Taipei Music Center (TMC), turning a 22-acre (9-hectare) site into a new urban arts district.
Projects | Mar 24, 2022
A Hollywood home for creatives
A Hollywood development will serve as a collaborative center for artists, students, and those in the entertainment industry.
Cultural Facilities | Mar 10, 2022
A ‘reimagined’ David Geffen Hall in New York is on track to open this fall
Its half-billion-dollar reconstruction is positioning this performance space as an integral key to luring people to the city again.
Performing Arts Centers | Mar 8, 2022
Cincinnati Ballet’s new center embodies the idea that dance is for everyone
Cincinnati Ballet had become a victim of its own success, according to company president and CEO Scott Altman. “We were bursting at the seams in our old building. We had simply outgrown the facility,” Altman told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
