Fortuna celebrates Gene Lucas Community Center groundbreaking

FORTUNA – The community of Fortuna came together Monday to break ground on a new community center.
Fortuna Mayor Pro Tem Tami Trent said, “This is going to be a great community center, room for expansion and just one place where everybody can get together from seniors to youth, all in one area.”
The celebration began with city and county officials sharing what the center will mean to the community and why it was worth the decade-long effort.
The $25 million dollar facility near Newburg Park will provide a permanent home to the McLean Foundation, Multi Generational Center and Fortuna Senior Center. The new space will allow those groups to expand their services, and the center is already attracting interest from other organizations.
The McLean foundation is funding the development which will be named after long time Fortuna philanthropist Gene Lucas.
Lucas’ family said that when he would return from trips abroad he would say there’s no place like Humboldt and that he would be proud to have his name on this new chapter of Fortuna’s history.
McLean Foundation President Dennis Scott said he expects the 22,000 square foot building to be complete by March of 2019.
Scott said, “There’s not a place for social services to be administered in a fashion that would really represent the need because we’re really hurting here now. When we had the mill jobs it didn’t matter quite as much but right now this area is really hurting.”

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