- The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida plans to sell the Northwest Gainesville location for about $2.5 million six years after acquiring it.
- Sports programs at the Northwest Gainesville club have been cut, leaving 300-400 youth athletes uncertain about future activities.
- Local leaders and community members oppose the sale, citing a contract that restricts property sales for 10 years and are prepared to pursue legal action.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida wants to sell the Northwest Gainesville location, with a rumored $2.5 million price tag, just six years after receiving the 8.5-acre site and 19,500 square-foot building as part of a friendly acquisition from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Alachua County.
The Northwest Gainesville Boys & Girls Club has served for decades as a hub for youth tackle football, lacrosse, baseball and even adult kickball leagues. Inside the building, kids learn life skills and further their education in after-school programs, and Cox Communications just invested $25,000 to renovate a classroom into an Innovation Lab, with video streaming, podcasting and animation equipment.
Now, all sports programming has been cut off heading into the next school year. Former Gators quarterback Doug Johnson played, coached and fundraised for the club and said the actions by Jacksonville club officials leave 300-400 young athletes in limbo.
The potential sale only recently hit public awareness and stirred pushback, but Johnson, former Boys & Girls Clubs of Alachua County leaders and local elected commissioners have rebuffed the plan in private over the last nine months. Even so, the issue seems likely to end in a courtroom, Johnson said.
The public involvement—including multiple public speakers at the June 23 Alachua County Board of County Commissioners meeting and a Facebook group (Save our Boys & Girls Club) with over 260 members—seemed to come after Board member Janine Plavac mentioned the sale possibility at the June 16 meeting of the School Board of Alachua County.
Plavac brought up the site as a purchase opportunity for the school board for a new sports stadium instead of using Citizens Field, with the school board voting to bail on a joint project there with the city of Gainesville.
Fresh off the news, community members showed up at the very next county meeting to ask for assistance in preserving the Northwest Gainesville Boys & Girls Club.
Chair Ken Cornell said he’d like to formally open a dialogue to keep the club in its current format and under local control. He added that he would not support a new land use or zoning for the site.
Exactly eight months prior, in a letter dated Oct. 23, 2025, Cornell wrote to Paul Martinez, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, to support the continued use of the site for youth engagement and education.
“I do not want it to ever become an apartment complex or whatever they think the highest and best use is, so that’s where I am,” Cornell said at the June meeting. “I’ve said that to [Martinez] privately. I’m now saying it to him publicly, and we’ll see if that does anything. I’m not sure it will.”
The second main point of Cornell’s letter (attached below) was to support Johnson in his negotiations with Martinez.
Johnson said he caught wind of the sale last year and that the plans violate the 2020 acquisition. He said locals who’ve been involved in the club feel “bamboozled,” especially given the terms that the Jacksonville headquarters was given.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Alachua County agreed to hand the property over for a dollar, along with a $186,000 gift to support the programming. Johnson spearheaded fundraising for the club, founding the nonprofit Reeling For Kids in 2003 for that lone purpose and raising over $2 million through the years.
“If they think they’re just going to be able to come in and do this and everybody’s just going to hush or just be quiet and allow it to happen, they don’t understand Alachua County,” Johnson said. “There’s just been too many people that have been affected by the Boys & Girls Club throughout the year that have a heart string to the organization.”
The contract stipulates no sales of the property within 10 years unless it is destroyed by an act of God or that sale would further the best interest of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida and/or the local programming.
Johnson highlights that youth tackle football was the only programming when the acquisition happened, and yet now it’s gone. He said Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida wants to liquidate the property, take the cash outside the area, and then try to find partners to rent a classroom to carry on non-sports programming.
He called it a double whammy and a lose/lose.
Johnson also has a right of first refusal on the property, meaning he should get the first opportunity to buy the property before any other sale. The terms of that right of first refusal were outlined in a separate document, according to the acquisition contract viewed by Mainstreet.
Cornell said Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward also agreed the property should keep its overall land use and purpose. The property is within the county commission’s jurisdiction and borders the Gainesville city limit boundary to the east, allowing the potential for annexation.
Johnson said it seems the Jacksonville leadership wants to continue with the sale after months of discussions. He said the next steps would likely be legal.
“There’s just multiple hard line stops in the acquisition agreement that doesn’t give them the authority to do this,” Johnson said. “So we tried to work this in a civil manner, but obviously we’re going to have to take next steps, and we are prepared to do that.”
