Mayor Muriel Bowser broke ground Monday on a $28 million modernization of the Jelleff Recreation Center in Georgetown, a Ward 2 facility that has gone without a renovation since it was originally built in the 1950s. The event was streamed live on Bowser's Facebook page under the title “LIVE: Mayor Bowser Breaks Ground on Jelleff Recreation Center Modernization in Ward 2.”
According to a release distributed by EIN Presswire, Bowser was scheduled to join the DC Department of General Services, the DC Department of Parks and Recreation, and community members at the Monday morning event to mark the start of construction. The new building is planned at 19,500 square feet and will include a gymnasium, a fitness room, multipurpose spaces, and a refinished outdoor swimming pool with an expanded pool deck, per the same release. Mayor Bowser on Facebook carried the groundbreaking live to viewers who couldn't make it to Georgetown in person.
A Years-Long Push Hits a Budget Snag
The road to Monday's groundbreaking wasn't smooth. The Georgetowner reported in February that the project was running about $10 million over budget, which forced changes to the initial design. As a result, a planned auxiliary gym was cut from the renovation, and Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E learned of the change with only three days' notice before a public meeting, according to The Georgetowner.
That marked a shift from designs unveiled in 2024, when The Georgetown Metropolitan described plans for two gym areas — a relocated basketball court and a smaller auxiliary gym — along with a new fitness room and entry lobby. The revised 2026 plans instead call for a workout room, expanded locker facilities, meeting rooms, activity and game rooms, and a full-sized basketball gym, the outlet reported.
Club Programming Faces Separate Funding Fight
Apart from the construction budget, the Boys & Girls Club's programming at Jelleff has run into its own funding troubles. The Georgetowner reported that District funding for the club was not included in the city's slimmed-down 2027 budget, effectively zeroing it out that year. Club leaders said they have reached out to the D.C. Council to push for inclusion in the 2028 budget and continued support for programming.
To help bridge the gap, an anonymous Jelleff alumnus and his wife are funding a campaign to match up to $100,000 in donations to the club, per the same Georgetowner report. It's not the first time club funding has come under scrutiny — WTOP reported in 2024 that $610,000 in city funding previously allotted to the club had disappeared from Bowser's proposed 2025 budget, according to club representative Webster. A spokesperson for the Deputy Mayor for Education told WTOP that the center would close during modernization and that the District looked forward to continuing programming once it reopens.
Part of a Citywide Recreation Investment
District officials frame the Jelleff project as part of a broader push into neighborhood recreation facilities. The administration says it has invested more than $640 million in recreation centers citywide since 2015, including nearly $45 million in Ward 2 alone, per the EIN Presswire release. On social media, a local account, Jelleff Community Friends, celebrated the milestone, writing that neighbors had been “pushing to revitalize the large ancient Jelleff Rec Center that hasn't been updated since 1955” for seven years since being elected in 2018, adding that construction is “finally starting soon” after years of surveys and meetings.
For now, the groundbreaking marks a concrete step after years of delay, though questions remain about the center's exact construction timeline and final design. The National Capital Planning Commission's project synopsis notes that the existing community center sits in Georgetown and has been managed by the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington, underscoring how closely the capital project and the club's programming are intertwined in the neighborhood, even as they face separate funding paths.
