A Jewish center currently under construction in northwest Gainesville is set to reopen this fall.
The Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student and Community Center, located at 2021 NW Fifth Ave., has been in the process of reconstruction since April.
Rabbi Berl Goldman, executive director of the community center, said the original building couldn’t hold a lot of people. The center added a tent in the back of the building for a few years to accommodate residents and students, but that still couldn’t fix the space issue.
Goldman said the center decided to knock down the building to construct a larger center.
“We are just building a center to accommodate the ever-growing demand on our program’s services, to accommodate the current interest and participation and to accommodate the future growth in generations that will attend,” he said.
Goldman said the center’s construction costs about $4.5 million. He added that an endowment to the center will be $1.5 million.
The center is still raising money for the endowment.
It has been funding the project through the help of donations from individuals and foundations, he said.
The new 23,000-square-foot center will have a 1,500-square-foot grand lobby, atrium, synagogue and social hall.
The center will also include a full-time kosher cafe, exercise facility, children’s room, Judaic study library center and offices for student interns and the faculty of the center.
The building is being constructed to Leadership and Energy Environmental Design standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council, which is the first of its kind in North Central Florida, Goldman said.
Gabrielle Lipman, a 20-year-old UF health science junior, goes to Chabad and said she was excited for the changes.
“Throughout the time they’ve been building, they’ve had adequate space,” Lipman said. “I think it is absolutely great to have the infrastructure to support Jewish students at UF.”
Rabbi Berl Goldman, executive director of the Tabacinic Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student and Community Center, at 2021 NW Fifth Ave., stands in the site of the new center.
