"For over 20 years, Weston has looked forward to additional indoor recreation and gathering space." That line comes from the city's own Newsday Tuesday newsletter of October 20, 2026. It ran next to photos of the October 12 groundbreaking for the PLEX at Vista Park.
Twenty years is a long wait for a city this size. Weston was set up to get its indoor recreation from other places: clubhouses inside the planned communities, the YMCA at Regional Park, and one modest Community Center. The PLEX is the first time the city is building a public recreation center of its own. On a park most families know for game days, that means a construction site through spring 2028 and a playground that is slated for removal.
How a City of This Size Ended Up With One Community Center
The city's Parks and Recreation Master Plan was adopted April 1, 2024 and built on survey work from 2022. It is unusually blunt about the gap. It says Weston "lacks meeting spaces, event spaces, arts and crafts dedicated spaces, fitness oriented spaces and flexible spaces."
The plan also explains why. Weston runs as a contract city, with major service providers doing most of the work. The planned communities and special districts carry their own recreation amenities, and the plan names Bonaventure Town Center Club and Savanna Commons as examples. It counts the Weston YMCA Family Center at Regional Park as another major indoor space, with fitness classes, youth and adult sports, and an outdoor aquatics center. All of that space is private, though. The city's own indoor space was one building.
That building is the Weston Community Center at Regional Park, 20200 Saddle Club Road. It runs year-round classes and rents out rooms. According to the master plan, it has three multipurpose rooms that can open into one large room. The rest of the building holds the Parks and Recreation offices.
Here is how that compared with nearby cities when the plan measured total indoor recreation space:
| City | Total indoor recreation space |
|---|---|
| Sunrise | 195,689 sq ft |
| Plantation | 70,250 sq ft |
| Tamarac | 49,966 sq ft |
| Wellington | 28,000 sq ft |
| Parkland | 24,700 sq ft |
| Weston | 7,376 sq ft |
The plan also checked Weston against National Recreation and Park Association benchmarks for cities of 50,000 to 70,000 people. The median city that size has two recreation centers and two community centers. Weston was listed with zero recreation centers and one community center. The plan ties the shortage to programming as well. It found that Weston typically offers about half the programs of comparable nearby cities, that its strength is sports through the Sports Alliance, and that the lack of indoor space holds back everything else.
What the PLEX Adds
According to the city's project page, the PLEX will be a recreation center of about 45,000 square feet. That is roughly six times the city's entire indoor recreation footprint in the master plan's comparison. It goes on the last five undeveloped acres of Vista Park, the 30-acre athletic park that opened in June 2005.
Inside, the city lists:
- a gymnasium and indoor multipurpose courts
- an upstairs walking and running track
- multipurpose rooms
- supporting facilities
Outside:
- a new shaded playground
- a splash pad
- multipurpose courts under a covered steel roof
- an outdoor pavilion
- added parking and a new access drive connecting to the south parking lot
- artificial turf on two soccer fields that are now natural grass
Each of those items answers something from the master plan's resident survey. On a 0 to 5 scale, residents rated "Develop new indoor recreation centers" at 3.7 and "Additional splash pads" at 3.6. "Add more shaded outdoor areas" scored 4.3, and "Develop new walking/biking trails and connect existing trails" scored 4.1. The PLEX speaks to both with a covered roof over its outdoor courts and an indoor walking and running track.
The splash pad will be the city's first. The current City of Weston park listings show no splash pad at any existing park.
The Playground That Makes Way
Vista Park, at 18800 Vista Park Boulevard, has a shaded playground today. The construction contract includes a line item for "Demolition and Disposal of Existing Playground and adjacent area." That calls for removing the equipment, surfacing and foundation and leaving the area "ready to accept the construction and installation of new parking lot spaces."
So the playground families use now becomes parking, and a new shaded playground is built as part of the complex. For a family that plans afternoons around Vista Park, that leaves a gap of unknown length between the old playground coming out and the new one opening. The city posts amenity closures on its Park / Field Closures page. The same page has a playground status line and the real-time lightning notifications for Vista, Regional and Tequesta Trace parks.
These city parks list shaded playgrounds:
- Country Isles Park, 2260 Country Isles Road
- Eagle Point Park, 18691 North Lake Boulevard
- Emerald Estates Park, 16400 Emerald Estates Drive
- Gator Run Park, 1101 Park Boulevard
- Indian Trace Park, 17998 Saddle Club Road
- Peace Mound Park, 1300 Three Village Road
- Regional Park, 20200 Saddle Club Road
- Tequesta Trace Park, 600 Indian Trace
Bonaventure Park, at 520 Racquet Club Road, also has a playground. Windmill Ranch Park, at 2902 Bonaventure Boulevard, has a shaded playground too, but the city's playground status line listed Windmill Ranch as closed on October 31, 2026.
Regional Park is the natural stand-in for Vista while the work goes on. It has a shaded playground, the Community Center, and the Weston YMCA Family Center across Saddle Club Road at 20201. The YMCA has a gymnasium, a group exercise studio and an outdoor pool.
The Schedule, the Contractor and the Cost
The city commission awarded Bid No. 2026-13 on September 28, 2026 to James B. Pirtle Construction Company Inc., doing business as Pirtle Construction Company of Fort Lauderdale. The bid total was $33,792,599. WJ Architects is the design consultant. The project page lists the status as "Contract Executed" and traffic impacts as "None."
The ceremony was October 12. On the project page, construction starts this month, November 2026, and is expected to finish in May 2028. The bid form gives the contractor 540 calendar days to reach final completion after the city issues its notices to proceed. That timeline runs through all of summer 2027 with construction underway at Vista Park.
The cost makes more sense against the city's budget. In its Fiscal Year 2026 budget message, the city said the citywide budget was up 46.67% from the prior year. It attributed the increase mainly to two "one-time" debt-funded capital projects: Vista Park Phase II with the indoor recreation complex, and the Regional Park maintenance yard relocation with new courts. Together those total $56,337,200. Without them, the city said, the budget fell 0.62%. The message calls the indoor complex a facility that "fills a critical gap by providing much-needed public indoor space."
The fields change too. Bid scope shows the two soccer fields being demolished, regraded, drained and rebuilt as artificial turf with new fencing, netting, walkways and shade structures.
Questions about the schedule go to Assistant City Manager and COO Karl Thompson, P.E., the project contact, at 954-385-2600. The project number is 26-008.
If you own a home near Vista Park and want to know how buyers are likely to see the next eighteen months of construction and the amenity that follows, The Scarberry Group can walk you through it. Request a complimentary home valuation and staging consultation.
