Teresa Sargeant
Key Points
- Central Florida Preparatory School opened the Robert A. Flanders Athletic and Performing Arts Center on Aug. 28 after decades of planning.
- The 24,000-square-foot center includes a gymnasium, 11 classrooms, culinary and visual arts spaces and a retractable stage.
- Students are currently using the facility for volleyball games, physical education and upcoming performing arts events planned for December.
Central Florida Preparatory School celebrated the opening of its new Robert A. Flanders Athletic and Performing Arts Center Aug. 28, marking the completion of a project school leaders say has been decades in the making.
School administrators, members of the Flanders family and community leaders gathered inside the new gymnasium for a ribbon cutting and dedication of the facility, named in honor of school co-founder Robert “Bob” Flanders.
Rowena Flanders, who founded the school with her husband in 1990, said the center represents the continuation of a vision that began 36 years ago.
“This athletic and performing arts center is something I have personally dedicated the last 25 years of my life to developing,” Flanders said. “While our grown children spent their school years practicing, performing and competing in rented spaces, our grandchildren will have the opportunity to enjoy this space and everything it offers for many, many years to come.”
The approximately 24,000-square-foot center includes an 11,000-square-foot gymnasium, 11 classrooms and spaces for culinary arts, visual arts and video production, as well as a 30-by-16-foot retractable stage. The project broke ground in March 2025 after plans for the expansion were delayed following the COVID-19 pandemic. The school moved to its current Marden Road campus in 2019.
Flanders said the building represents the next chapter not only for her family but for the school community and future generations of students.
“This building is more than walls and classrooms,” she said. “It is a place where children will discover talents they didn’t know they had.”
Julia Najera, Central Florida Prep’s head of school and Flanders’ daughter, formally dedicated the building to her father during the ceremony.
“My dad didn’t live to see this building, but he didn’t need to,” Najera said. “He already knew what it would become because he and my mother built it that way from the very beginning, one act of belief at a time.”
Najera said in written responses after the ceremony that students are already using the center. Volleyball season is underway, with the school hosting home games in the new facility for the first time. The Compass Café concession area has opened, and physical education classes now have dedicated indoor space. Basketball will follow volleyball, and the school plans to host volleyball tournaments in October. Performing arts events are expected to begin in December.
Najera said the school’s middle- and high-school performing arts program has also launched a Junior Thespians Club, with two productions planned during the school year.