Community Centers in Palm Bay — Palm Bay, Florida

Palm Bay Recreation runs two community centers, the Tony Rosa Community Center on Port Malabar Blvd. NE and the Ted Whitlock Community Center inside Fred Poppe Regional Park, and lists the nonprofit Greater Palm Bay Senior Activity Center alongside them.

The Recreation Centers menu on the City of Palm Bay site groups five places: the Greater Palm Bay Senior Center, the Palm Bay Aquatic Center, the Ted Whitlock and Tony Rosa centers, and Turkey Creek Sanctuary with the Margaret Hames Nature Center (City of Palm Bay, Recreation Centers). Only Tony Rosa and Ted Whitlock work as general community centers with gyms, classes and memberships; the Palm Bay memberships page states plainly that Palm Bay Recreation operates two community centers in Palm Bay (City of Palm Bay, Memberships).

Each building has its own address and phone line. Tony Rosa is at 1502 Port Malabar Blvd. NE, Palm Bay 32905, phone (321) 952-3443 (Tony Rosa Community Center). Ted Whitlock is at 370 Championship Cir. NW, Palm Bay 32907, phone (321) 952-3231 (Ted Whitlock Community Center). Both keep identical hours: 9 AM to 8:30 PM on weekdays, 9 AM to 4:30 PM on Saturday, and closed on Sunday and on holidays.

Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the City of Palm Bay website.

The Tony Rosa Community Center at 1502 Port Malabar Blvd. NE has a full-size gym with two side-by-side basketball courts and three pickleball courts, a fitness mezzanine, two large multi-use rooms, a weight room and a cardio room.

That inventory comes from the Palm Bay memberships page (City of Palm Bay, Memberships). The Tony Rosa page itself adds treadmills in the cardio room plus separate men's and women's locker rooms, and it posts that the saunas and the racquetball courts are closed until further notice (Tony Rosa Community Center). Fitness classes at Tony Rosa are aimed at every age group, from children to seniors, and the city says a community center membership is not needed to take them.

The Palm Bay Recreation Department events list for Monday, October 12, 2026 showed Bone Builders from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, Gentle Yoga from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM, Jazzercise from 5:45 PM to 6:45 PM, and weight room and cardio room hours running 9:00 AM to 8:30 PM, without naming the building for each entry (City of Palm Bay Recreation Department).

Tony Rosa also opens its three indoor courts for open pickleball play on Tuesday and Thursday from 9 AM to 12 PM and on Saturday from 9 AM to 12:30 PM, hours the city says can change with availability (City of Palm Bay, Pickleball). Outside program time, the Tony Rosa banquet room and gym can be booked; a banquet room contract for rooms A and B carries a $200 security and damage deposit (City of Palm Bay, Rentals).

The Ted Whitlock Community Center is an 18,000 square foot building inside Fred Poppe Regional Park on Championship Circle NW, with a gym, a billiards room, a small meeting room, a banquet kitchen and a large banquet room that a divider can split.

The Ted Whitlock page also lists two sets of restrooms, one of them with showers, and describes classes, programs, events and memberships for all ages (Ted Whitlock Community Center). According to the Palm Bay memberships page, the Championship Circle gym fits two side-by-side basketball courts and four pickleball courts, and the building has small and large multi-use rooms for classes (City of Palm Bay, Memberships).

Indoor pickleball fills the Ted Whitlock gym on several mornings: open court play runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 AM to 1 PM and Saturday from 9 AM to 12:30 PM (City of Palm Bay, Pickleball). The same Palm Bay page sets a Winter Adult Pickleball League at the center starting Wednesday, November 4, with registration due by Wednesday, October 21, and pickleball mixers on the second Monday of each month.

Two Palm Bay addresses circulate for the building. The center page and the memberships page use 370 Championship Cir. NW, while the Rentals page places the Ted Whitlock Community Center at 1951 Malabar Rd. NW (City of Palm Bay, Rentals), which is the address the facility directory gives for Fred Poppe Regional Park as a whole (City of Palm Bay, Fred Poppe Regional Park).

A Palm Bay community center membership costs $75 a year for adults 18 to 54, $45 a year for minors and for seniors 55 and older, $160 for a family, $10 for one month or $25 for three months.

Memberships bought at the Tony Rosa Community Center also work at the Ted Whitlock Community Center, so one card covers both Palm Bay gyms (City of Palm Bay, Memberships). Each application needs a registration form and a waiver, and applicants 17 and under need a parent or guardian to sign.

The Palm Bay City Council set these prices in Resolution 2025-31, which adopts Recreation Department fees for fiscal year 2025-2026 under Chapter 36 of the city Code of Ordinances and took effect October 1, 2025 (Resolution 2025-31, page 1). Exhibit A of the resolution prints the same annual rates in its FY 25 and FY 26 columns, so the Palm Bay membership prices did not change between those two years (Resolution 2025-31, Exhibit A).

A Palm Bay family membership is defined in Exhibit A as two adults 18 or older in one household plus up to three children under 18, five people in all. A further child adds $15, and any further adult in the household buys a separate adult membership. Non-members who only want open gym at Tony Rosa or Ted Whitlock pay the $2 guest fee each day; the memberships page says the city charges it for liability reasons, waives it for people attending a class or program that carries its own fee, and does not refund it.

Palm Bay's two community centers keep anyone under 13 out of the weight and cardio rooms, require ages 13 to 15 to be directly supervised by a parent or guardian, and require ages 16 and 17 to have a waiver signed each year.

Every person using the Tony Rosa or Ted Whitlock weight and cardio rooms must hold an active membership (City of Palm Bay, Memberships). Direct supervision, in the city's definition, means the adult is either doing the same activity as the child or watching the child without doing something else.

City pages disagree on one weight room charge. The Palm Bay memberships page offers a daily weight room visit at the Tony Rosa Community Center for $5, including open gym, and Exhibit A of Resolution 2025-31 lists a one-time Daily Weight Room Trial Visit at $5. The Tony Rosa page, however, states that daily fees are no longer available for the weight room (Tony Rosa Community Center). Both statements were on the City of Palm Bay site on October 12, 2026.

Open gym at the Palm Bay centers has its own rules. Minors under 18 need a waiver signed by a parent or guardian on file before they can use open gym without an adult present; the waiver is kept so the child can check in alone later, and it must be renewed every year (Ted Whitlock Community Center). Parents can sign it free through the Play Online site, though the checkout step has to be completed for the city to record it. Children under 9 in the gym must be directly supervised by a parent or guardian older than 17, and no one under 5 is allowed in the gym during open gym activities (City of Palm Bay, Pickleball).

The Greater Palm Bay Senior Activity Center at 1275 Culver Drive NE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organized in 1987 and listed by Palm Bay Recreation; it is open Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 4 PM.

The city's page for the Culver Drive center describes its purpose as a safe and healthy place for members to exercise, learn, play and enjoy fellowship, and gives its phone as (321) 724-1338 (City of Palm Bay, Greater Palm Bay Senior Activity Center). Members take part in art, meet and greet dinners, cornhole and woodshop, among other activities. The Palm Bay page links to the center's own official webpage, gpbsac.net.

Two Greater Palm Bay Senior Activity Center events are open to the general public aged 18 and up. Wednesday bingo starts at 11:30 AM with a 12-sheet package covering 26 patterns, and Friday night bingo starts at 6 PM with a 12-sheet package covering 36 patterns, each adding pull tab, special and speed games.

People 55 and older who want a gym rather than a club can also buy the $45 senior annual membership at Tony Rosa or Ted Whitlock, the same price Palm Bay charges minors (Resolution 2025-31, Exhibit A).

Palm Bay's FY 2027 Proposed Budget request list includes $121,095 for Tony Rosa exterior renovations, $67,962 to seal the Ted Whitlock building and $35,000 to replace the Senior Center marquee sign.

These lines sit in the Personnel, Operating and Capital Funding Request List of the Palm Bay budget. The budget explains that departments received set operating allocations for fiscal year 2027 and submitted any further needs to the Budget Office and City Manager for consideration pending funding availability (FY 2027 Proposed Budget, page 5), so a line in the list is a request, not an approved project.

Most of the Tony Rosa items, including the air conditioning for rooms A and B and the mezzanine ceiling where classes meet, appear on page 88 of the Palm Bay document (FY 2027 Proposed Budget, page 88), and the Senior Center sign appears on page 89 (FY 2027 Proposed Budget, page 89). The list does not say which requests were funded.