Tallahassee's Community Centers

The City of Tallahassee lists twelve community and service centers run by its Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Affairs department.

The department's community centers page names LeVerne Payne, Lawrence-Gregory, Jake Gaither, Sue Herndon McCollum, the Lafayette Park Arts and Crafts Center, Walker-Ford, Jack L. McLean Jr., Dorothy B. Oven Park and House, the Smith-Williams Service Center, the Lincoln Center, the Palmer Munroe Teen Center and the Tallahassee Senior Center, and says each offers daily activities for youth and adults, from athletics to homework to cooking. The department's office is at 1201 Myers Park Drive, 850-891-3866. Addresses, phones and posted hours from each center's City page are below; Dorothy B. Oven Park, a rental house and garden, is covered in the last section.

Several centers name the neighborhoods they serve. The City places the Payne center in the Frenchtown neighborhood of Goodbread Hills, Smith-Williams in the Greater Bond neighborhood serving Greater Bond and the Southside, the McLean park on the former Southside Park, Playcamp at McCollum near the Midtown area, and the Gaither center five minutes from Florida A&M University.

The Lincoln Center and the Payne center serve Frenchtown, and the Lawrence-Gregory center on Dade Street is one of the oldest in the system.

The Lincoln Center at 438 West Brevard Street stands on the site of Lincoln High School and keeps the Lincoln Room, a museum to the school. The City says the school served as the primary public education center for Leon County's African Americans from 1869 to 1970, while the 2016 state historical marker at the same address gives 1869 to 1969 and says the school began in 1869 as one of only two Freedman's Bureau schools in Florida, moved to this Frenchtown site after 1906 and got its present brick building in 1929. The two official dates differ by a year.

The Lincoln Center runs a weekday afterschool program from 3 to 5:30 p.m. with tutoring for grades K through 8, a six-week summer enrichment program with The Lincoln Foundation and The Riley House, senior fitness, sewing, art and computer classes, a weekday congregate meal for seniors from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and pro bono legal help for seniors with wills and deeds. Partner agencies in the building include Kids Incorporated of the Big Bend's Early Head Start and the Lincoln Center Boxing Club for ages 8 to 18.

The LeVerne F. Payne Community Center on West Fourth Avenue in the Frenchtown neighborhood of Goodbread Hills began as the Naval Reserve Building. The City acquired it with about 3 acres in 1972 as the Fourth Avenue Community Center, added two tennis courts in 1979 and rededicated it in February 2007 for longtime director LeVerne F. Payne. It sits across Fourth Avenue from the Lee Park ball field and, every December on the third Friday for over thirty years, has hosted Soul Santa's arrival by helicopter.

The Lawrence-Gregory Community Center, one of the oldest community centers in the Tallahassee parks and recreation system, opened in 1959, was renamed in 2002 for retired Recreation Superintendent James Lawrence and Beulah Gregory, its first supervisor, and was completely renovated in 2008. Its gym hosts basketball and volleyball leagues, pickleball on Saturday, Monday and Wednesday mornings and a Third Friday Skate Night from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Lafayette Park's center, built in 1957, was the City's first multi-purpose community center.

The City of Tallahassee says the park around it holds a recreation center, the Arts and Crafts Center, a playground, a softball field, tennis courts, a picnic shelter and a 1 mile course trail. The same page calls the park 22 acres in one paragraph and a 20-acre park area in another. After nearly 50 years the center was renamed for Sue Herndon McCollum, a former Lafayette Park supervisor and Assistant Recreation Director, who started Playcamp in 1966; the City calls it its oldest fee-based camp. Registration is an in-person lottery at the center on Monday, April 5, and the 2027 camp runs in five sessions from May 31 to July 30 for ages 5 to 12.

Next door, the Lafayette Park Arts and Crafts Center has served the area for over 50 years with several classrooms, a pottery lab and three kilns, and quarterly classes in pottery, stained glass, crochet and drawing. Its fall 2026 session ran August 16 to October 10, and the holiday session runs October 25 to December 12, 2026, with registration that opened September 21. Its summer art camp meets at Optimist Park, 1806 East Indianhead Drive; the 2026 camp cost $238 for a two-week session and $119 for the one-week session.

Smith-Williams, Walker-Ford, Jack McLean and Jake Gaither serve Bond, the Southside and the area near FAMU.

The Smith-Williams Service Center on Pasco Street was dedicated by Mayor Hurley Rudd and the City of Tallahassee on October 11, 1981, and named for Elder Owen Smith and Lucile Williams. It runs a free K through 5 after-school program from 3 to 5 p.m. with the Leon County Schools Title I Program, a weekday senior meal with Elder Care Services from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and free computer classes. Its advisory board meets at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of October, December, February, April and August.

The Walker-Ford Community Center opened on June 13, 1976. Its calendar mixes cooking, aquaponics and 4-H classes with basketball and baseball leagues, pickleball and senior fitness, plus a Halloween Carnival and Haunted House and the Miss Walker/Ford Pageant. It joins Smith-Williams for the Soul Santa Comes to Bond Christmas program on the fourth Saturday in December from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The Jack L. McLean Jr. Community Center anchors a 52-acre park named for the former city commissioner who drove the acquisition and development of the former Southside Park. Its 20,386 square foot recreation center has a gym and weight room, and the aquatics complex adds a zero-depth entry pool, a 22-foot high water slide and a 25-yard, 8-lane lap pool; the park has a 24-hole disc golf course. Dedicated November 3, 2004, it was the first full project completed with the City's 10 percent share of the Blueprint 2000 sales tax extension.

The Jake Gaither Community Center was built in 1964 and named for FAMU coach Jake Gaither. The City says it sits on 120 acres with a nine-hole municipal golf course, two lighted tennis courts and a softball field, and that later work brought the center to 12,000 square feet with a weight room, a computer lab and hurricane-hardened walls. Its indoor pickleball court is open Fridays from noon to 2 p.m.

Teens have the Palmer Munroe Teen Center on Jackson Bluff Road, and older adults have the Tallahassee Senior Center's two sites.

The Palmer Munroe Teen Center opened in August 2010 as the first teen center in Tallahassee. The City describes it as a collaboration of the City, Leon County, Leon County Schools and the Department of Juvenile Justice, open Monday through Saturday from 2 to 8 p.m., and it runs Community Connections, a restorative justice program for ages 13 through 17 that meets twice a week over a fourteen-week cycle.

The Tallahassee Senior Center serves active adults age 50 and up at 1400 N. Monroe St. (850-891-4000) and at a second location, 2743 Welaunee Blvd. (850-891-4110), each taking calls from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Its newsletter list shows a second senior center ribbon cutting in the September 20, 2026 edition and a Welaunee open house in the September 27 and October 4 editions. The center offers fitness classes in person and on WCOT TV, Lifelong Learning and art classes, a Grandparents as Parents program, and Southside wellness circles on second Tuesdays at Jack McLean and third Wednesdays at Jake Gaither.

Several Tallahassee centers rent rooms for events, and the Oven Park house on Thomasville Road posts a full fee schedule.

The Lincoln Center rents its Conference Center, holding up to 74 people, and its Gymnatorium, holding up to 250 seated; reservations go through 850-891-4180. Lawrence-Gregory rents rooms for birthdays, weddings, bridal shows, anniversaries and reunions, with rates by phone at 850-891-3910.

Dorothy B. Oven Park at 3205 Thomasville Road is a house and garden of more than six acres rather than a gym. The City says the land was part of the Lafayette Land Grant of 1824, that a camellia nursery there was replaced in the 1930s by a house designed by Alfred Maclay, and that the property came to the City in 1985 through a nonprofit Tallahassee parks foundation. Rates include the 7.5 percent sales tax: $1,881.25 for a 14-hour weekend wedding, $1,096.50 for a 6.5-hour wedding, $602 for a 4-hour first-floor block and $148.35 for a 3-hour room block, with deposits of $100 to $250 and a 2.6 percent card fee. Its holiday light display opens Thanksgiving evening, November 26, and runs nightly through January 1, with Elf Night on Sunday, December 13.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, from each center's own City of Tallahassee page, the department's community centers list, the Tallahassee Senior Center page and the state historical marker for the original Lincoln High School.