The Arverne East Welcome Center, which officially opened with a ribbon cutting event in April, hosted a prom for students from nearby P.S. 106 Lighthouse Elementary in Edgemere, Queens to celebrate the end of the school year.

The event took place in the Welcome Center’s community room, which can be booked by the public for a variety of events.

P.S. 106’s prom was originally planned to be at their school building, but “our building is so small, we thought that space would probably be a better location based on the stage and the aesthetics of the stage location with the backdrop of the beach,” Principal Althea Johnson told the local newspaper, The Wave.

Arverne East Welcome Center’s community room has a furnished patio with large windows overlooking the beach. Parents and volunteers decorated the space to give it the right atmosphere for the young students.

The 6,000-square-foot welcome center was designed by WXY Studio and in addition to the community room, it provides offices and storage space for the Parks Department, as well as public restrooms.

It is a part of the first phase of Arverne East, which includes an adjacent 35-acre nature preserve that is also currently open to the public.

The overall Arverne East project, a development in partnership with The Bluestone Organization and Triangle Equities, will transform a 116-acre vacant oceanfront site on the Rockaway Peninsula into the first net-zero community in New York City and include 1,650 housing units – 80% of which will be affordable.

Click here to read more about the prom at the Arverne East Welcome Center.