New Senior Center Awaits Feasibility Report

                             By Edward Shanahan

     The new deadline facing the committee seeking a site for the proposed new Senior Center will be mid-July, City  Councilors were told at a recent meeting.

   By that time the first phase of a study to be conducted of the feasibility of using a site at Look Park should be ready for evaluation by city officials, site committee members said.

 The feasibility study will be conducted by the architecture firm of Juster, Pope and Frazier of Shelburne Falls, the same firm that designed the city’s new fire station on King Street.

 The first phase of the study will address such issues as whether the proposed location is in a wetlands area and how difficult public access  to the site would be.

 Some of the four councilors at the April 11 meeting as well as Mayor Higgins expressed reservations about the site, because of its distance from the city’s centers of population and limited service by public transportation, but said they were prepared to wait for the results of the feasibility study.

 “I’d prefer a downtown  Florence or downtown Northampton location,” Mayor Higgins told the group, but there is no site large enough or cheap enough in either location. From the beginning of the search for property for a Senior Center, she said her two criteria were that no land be taken off the tax rolls and no city funds be spent for land acquisition.

Patricia  Shaughnessy, director of the Council on Aging, explained that four  sites that had been considered were the parking area behind the Municipal Building and Roundhouse, but construction costs would be prohibitive; land off Spring Street , which was later sold to the Elks Club; the former Florence Grammar School, now Florence Community Center, which now serves as an alternative school program and thus is no longer available; and the Florence Civic Center,  which was removed from consideration by the Florence Civic Association.

 David Stevens, a member of the committee and an official for the  state Department of Elder Services, said that, in fact, a total of 62

locations had been considered by the committee over the last four or five years.

 Other members of the site committee shared his frustration that the public is only now interested in the process of choosing a location, even though the search  has been on-going for a long time.

 “It’s getting very vicious,” said one member.  “People haven’t listened, they haven’t seen what’s gone on.”

  Councilor-at-large Michael Bardsley agreed: “That’s the nature of the beast, it’s all part of the process.”

  Current proposals calls for  building a 18,000 square foot center with parking for up to 150 cars, on some two acres of land  located off the service road at Look Park behind the Dow Pavilion. There would be no access to the site directly through the park.

 Stevens said that,  based on the size of the elderly population in Northampton,  “we are already underbuilding,” given current plans.

 Ward 5 Councilor Alex  Ghiselin said his concern and that expressed by others is how people will get to the center given the lack of public transportation. He also said the site is too isolated; people using the center would not have access to shops, a bank or post office. He believes “smart growth” would dictate building a center in a more central location.

 A good deal of discussion focused the issue of poor public transportation and how most senior citizens still drive, even to reach the current center at  Memorial Hall.

 One fall-back position, should the controversial Look Park site not pass muster, some members said, would be to consider building next to Northampton Housing Authority property on Conz Street.

 “Where my heart is is at the Walter Salvo House,” said Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge.

 The Salvo House site is a subject of debate because it no longer serves primarily an elderly population. According to Stevens, 60 percent of the residents are disabled, rather than elderly.

 In order for the public to become better informed about the Senior Center issue, Bardsley said the site committee should hold a press conference and come before the City Council after the first phase of the feasibility study is completed.