WE ARE GOING UP! UP! UP!

Just a few months ago, the construction site of a new Boys & Girls Club in Santa Rosa’s Roseland neighborhood was little more than a dirt lot with spray-painted orange lines outlining the club’s rooms and facilities.

Today, a massive wood-framed structure can be seen from the sidewalk on Sebastopol Road as the building rises with unmistakable, post-pandemic urgency. The bulk of wood framing for the second floor was completed in the past week.

The entire facility, which will bring underserved children in Roseland a full-size commercial kitchen, a teen center, a real dance studio, an art studio, and science/technology lab, is expected to be open for business by January.

For the construction crews working the project, the nature of the project and its need in the Roseland community has fueled that urgency, said Austin Whited, project superintendent for Gallaher Construction, the facility’s designer and builder.

“It’s like there’s been wind in the sails when they found out what it is,” Whited said, adding that local residents are also excited when they learn that a Boys & Girls Club is being built.