District Park's Holiday Calendar Runs Right Up to the Fieldhouse Opening

This season, the City of Palm Beach Gardens is holding two of its biggest public nights at Gardens North County District Park, 5101 117th Court North. Both take place a short walk from a building that city staff expect to be ready for occupancy by the end of December. The Fall Festival, headlined for October 24, and the Trailblazer 5K with its Tree Lighting on December 5 are familiar dates. The indoor fieldhouse on the park's western edge along Central Boulevard is new. Once it opens, the park will run on a year-round indoor schedule as well as the outdoor one it has always had.

The Calendar, Fall Through Early December

On September 23, the City posted its Fall Festival announcement promising a dance party, food vendors and large inflatables. Families are invited to come in costume and bring a bag for trick-or-treating. Pets should stay home, and the Alan B. Miller Medical Center is the sponsor. The headline on that announcement says Saturday, October 24, but the body text gives Saturday, October 4. Only October 24 lands on a Saturday this year. Even so, the City's Fall Festival page is the place to confirm the date before you go.

The art festival is a Howard Alan Events production. Artists show work in pop-up galleries, ranging from life-size sculpture to glassworks and handcrafted jewelry, and they are on site to talk about it. The City's call for Harvest & Holiday Bazaar vendors sets the dates at November 13 and 14 but doesn't name a venue.

What Is Going Up Along Central Boulevard

District Park runs along 117th Court North from Central Boulevard to Shady Lakes Drive. It sits next to the City's tennis and pickleball center, and soccer fields take up most of it. The City built most of the park with sales tax money.

The westernmost 14 acres were wooded until August 2024. That month, city contractors closed a nature trail and began clearing the land, according to a WLRN report produced with Stet News. The plan WLRN described was a metal-clad fieldhouse with 12 indoor courts, six of them for basketball, plus paved parking for 200 cars and grass parking for 400 more. The City lists the project as District Park: Phase 3 Indoor Fieldhouse. The final court count and finishes come from 2024 descriptions, and no 2026 source in our research confirms them.

The October 1, 2026 City Council meeting gave the most recent update. According to a published summary of the meeting, staff reported that the court lighting and speaker system were working, fire-suppression testing was underway, and the hardwood flooring had arrived. They expect the building to be ready for occupancy by the end of December, and they have planned the first gymnastics event for February. No public grand-opening date had been announced as of this writing.

Six Years From First Plan to Hardwood

The fieldhouse took this long because the City tried twice to have someone else build it. Palm Beach County bought the 82-acre property in April 2000 from the successors to the MacArthur Foundation, paying $3.1 million. The site had once been floated for a spring-training baseball stadium. The dispute over that proposal ended in 2018, when the county leased the land to the City. As WLRN reported, the lease gives the City until 2028 to finish construction.

The 2019 agreement with the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation called for an ice rink alongside the courts. The City canceled it in 2022, saying the nonprofit had not met its financial milestones during the pandemic. Building the fieldhouse itself also ruled out any chance of moving a separately proposed ice-rink complex from Plant Drive Park to this site.

The budget moved as well. The City's capital improvement plan listed the fieldhouse at $7.5 million. In September 2024, WLRN reported that the Council was weighing $8 million as part of a $20 million capital spending plan. Later that month, the Palm Beach Post reported $15.5 million allocated for construction. All three figures are from 2024, and the final cost may differ.

December 5, Beside a Finished Shell

The Trailblazer 5K and the Tree Lighting have shared a December evening since at least 2024. That year's race wound through the park's trails and between its multipurpose fields before the annual tree lighting. In 2025 the Tree Lighting ran from 4 to 7 p.m., with the lighting itself at 5:45 p.m. That night included a Mistletoe Market, carolers, music, food, inflatables, and Santa arriving on a fire truck.

This year's Trailblazer announcement, posted October 9, keeps the format. The 2K starts at 3:30 p.m., the 5K at 4:15 p.m., and the Tree Lighting Celebration follows. Registration is open through Race Roster, and the code SLEIGHTHETRAIL10 takes 10 percent off.

The City hasn't published a 2026 course map. What has changed since the trail-and-field route of 2024 is the western edge of the park, where the woods and the nature trail used to be. If staff stay on schedule, this year's race and tree lighting will take place a few weeks before the fieldhouse is ready for occupancy.

The City's Second Indoor Anchor

If it stays on schedule, the fieldhouse will be the second large indoor recreation building the City has completed in under two years. The first was the Burns Road Community Center, rebuilt for about $30 million. In 2024, WLRN reported a figure that included a $20 million loan. Stet News's 2025 coverage described the funding as $20 million in City money plus $10 million borrowed.

Stet News reported that the ribbon was cut at Burns Road at 2:52 p.m. on Saturday, May 31, 2025. The rebuilt center has two gyms, a dance studio, and a game room with pinball, foosball and air hockey. Upstairs are two art rooms named Imagination and Inspiration. The Palm Beach Post reported that summer camp, art classes and other programs were already running there soon after it reopened.

Burns Road also has history with the holiday calendar. In 2022, the City held its 38th Annual Holiday Bazaar there over two days in early December. This year's event has a new name, the Harvest & Holiday Bazaar, and moves earlier, to November 13 and 14. As of this writing, the City hadn't posted a venue.

Burns Road gives the City gyms, a dance studio and art rooms under one roof. District Park, out on Central Boulevard, has been fields, trails and the neighboring tennis and pickleball center, and it is also where the festival inflatables and the holiday tree go up. When the fieldhouse opens, the park adds indoor courts to that mix, and staff have already planned a gymnastics event there for February.

The Hasozbek-Garcia Team keeps track of changes like the fieldhouse and Burns Road because they shape daily life near Central Boulevard and Burns Road. If you'd like to talk through how projects like the District Park fieldhouse figure into a move within Palm Beach Gardens, we'd be glad to hear from you. Get Access to Our Private Listings.