National Football League linebacker and Palm Beach Central High School graduate Jon Bostic met Monday, April 11 with members of Wellington’s Planning, Zoning & Adjustment Board and Parks & Recreation Advisory Board to explain how he and fellow PBCHS graduate and former Major League Baseball player Devon Travis and other professional athletes plan to redevelop Wellington Community Park through an organization called Wellington Athletics.
Wellington Community Park was once the home of the Wellington Boys & Girls Club and is located on South Shore Blvd. south of Pierson Road. It has been underutilized since a new Boys & Girls Club facility opened in 2013.
Bostic said that Travis is currently coaching with the Atlanta Braves and was not available for the meeting. Other partners in the Wellington Athletics group include Josh Evans, retired from the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and founder of Level Up Fitness in Jacksonville, and Patrick O’Donnell, another PBCHS graduate and NFL punter for the Green Bay Packers.
“I’ve grown up here,” Bostic said. “Kids are our future… they can’t do much without us. I’ve gotten to know many kids in this community. How this process came about is being around those kids, taking those different kids to camp. There’s a lot more of those kids who should be able to have the chance to live a dream.”
He said that area youth need a program like Wellington Athletics to help them take their dreams to the next level.
“A lot of kids don’t in this area because they don’t have the guidance, they don’t have the resources,” Bostic said. “They don’t have the blueprint to be able to do it.”
Bostic said that he and his associates want to be able to help the next generation of athletes fulfill their ambitions. “That’s where this dream of wanting to give back to this community with this facility came up,” he said.
The goal is to provide a state-of-the-art, comprehensive sports facility that will attract skilled trainers, experienced coaches and college recruiters to the community; provide resources, direction and skills to be a successful student athlete; provide programs, outreach and facilities tailored to the community’s underserved youth athletes; and close the gap between athletes with and without the financial means, opportunities and resources needed to achieve their dreams.
“We want to put together a lot of programs to be able to teach these kids how to do it,” Bostic said, adding that his father also played in the NFL. “My dad was one of the first in his family to go to college. He went on to graduate and play football at the highest level.”
Bostic said he has taken young athletes on tours to colleges and coaching clinics and supported local schools and organizations in efforts to get them inspired.
“Taking these kids to all of these schools — there were kids who had never left Palm Beach County,” he said.
Attorney Kaitlin Guerin with the Gunster law firm, who is working with Wellington Athletics, said several prominent companies have been recruited to help with the project.
The site plan calls for a central headquarters surrounded by baseball and softball fields with pitching and batting facilities, a football/soccer field and eight basketball courts available for public use.
Indoor health and wellness amenities include a hot tub, cold tub, saunas, massage rooms, chiropractors and personal training rooms — “all the tools that athletes need for comprehensive care and a holistic approach to their sport,” Guerin said, adding that they have been working with village staff to research funding methods available for the project, including municipal bonds.
“The benefit of doing that and trying to give back more to the community… is that these facilities will be turned over to the village after construction,” she said, explaining that the village’s Acme Improvement District owns the land. “After construction, the village will own all these facilities, so you get a completely renovated, state-of-the-art sports complex for the community.”
Wellington Athletics would then operate and maintain the facilities, she explained.
Village Manager Jim Barnes said the old Boys & Girls Club site currently has six baseball fields and several outdoor basketball courts.
“We have not replaced those fields since they were originally constructed… back before Wellington was Wellington,” Barnes said. “The old Boys & Girls Club [building] is utilized as storage by the village.”
After a workshop last year, the Wellington Village Council directed staff to move forward with a request for proposals for use of the facility, and Wellington Athletics was the only organization to step forward with a plan. The original plan was about half the size of the Wellington Athletics proposal, estimated at about $27 million.
“That’s probably going up daily,” Barnes said. “One of the things we can do to get more return on investments for the village and Mr. Bostic’s team is look at public financing, with the revenue source from the lease payments from Wellington Athletics.”
The joint committee had many questions over the next hour and a half of the meeting, including how memberships in the club would compare to other private sports clubs.
Gunster attorney Brian Seymour said there is a need for the facility, adding that village staff has talked with the Palm Beach County Sports Commission about the proposed project.
“They’re champing at the bit for more opportunities, whether it’s for soccer, lacrosse, for football, for basketball, for volleyball — they are working really hard to bring more of that here,” Seymour said.
