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Date: 1/10/2023
SOUTHAMPTON – Last year, about 200 seniors answered a questionnaire on what elder services they would like to see in town. That’s only 10 percent of local elders, so to better prepare for planning a new senior center Abacus Architects + Planners was hired to get answers from the rest.
“It was a nice input session, for the 70 that could come,” said Joan Linnehan, director of the Council on Aging, in reference to a previous listening session in the current senior center. “Now we have a couple hundred people involved with the survey, but we’re trying to keep the momentum going so that people will be on board with the vision of a new center, a bigger center.”
The current center is too small to host many activities, such as pickleball, which are featured at some of the more recently built senior centers in the area. East Longmeadow has indoor courts, Linnehan said, though those facilities aren’t a high priority now that new courts were recently opened in Southampton, at Conant Park, but the flexibility should be there.
Seniors in town, Linnehan said, “may not come to our two rooms here, because [the current center is] not big enough to run programs that they’re interested in. But the future is to have a bigger place [so that they] will be interested in coming to the programming.”
The new survey, available on the town website until Jan. 6, revealed the variety of programming options possible. Residents were asked if they would use the senior center for meals and dining, cooking, standard offerings like board games and socializing, and wellness services.
Dedicated spaces for different activities can be built into a center design. The survey asked elders if they would be attracted to spaces for arts and crafts, computer classes, ballroom dancing, and a presentation room for talks on theatre and education topics. A golf simulator and putting green were an option, along with outdoor facilities for gardening, low impact exercise and walking paths.
Five architectural firms submitted bid packages for what is being called a feasibility study. Abacus, out of Boston, should be able to help the Ad Hoc Senior Center Feasability Committee meet the design deadline of May 17.
Resident David “Red” Parsons, who died on May 17, 2021, left the town $2.5 million toward the construction of a new senior center, but only if a feasibility study is completed within two years of his death. The new facility must also include adequate handicap parking. If those requirements aren’t met by May 17, the money will be shared with three other groups, including the Southampton Historical Society.
The town is also researching possible sites for a new public safety complex. That may impact the siting of a senior center. One possible site for a senior facility is the current fire station, located in the Town Hall area. That option won’t be available unless both services vacate that building, which is not a given.
“But it is town-owned land,” Linnehan said. The other options, “we have to pay for the land …W e’re prepared to do that … prepared to put some money toward land.” That expense may hamper putting money toward a bigger building and more amenities.
Another property recently came on the market in town, the former Harley Davidson dealership. Linnehan didn’t see it as viable for a senior center. The building feels industrial, with lots of cement, while a senior center will need more windows and accessibility. The price tag is also prohibitive.
“It has a lot of possibilities, if we only had $3 million,” Linnehan said. The town also needs a building “more modern and more open, with more window space, something that makes more sense for a senior center.”
“That’s a huge piece of property, 56 acres,” Linnehan said. “They’re hoping to put, not just the public safety, which is their priority, but possibly put the senior center there too … Again, we’re talking years for this to happen. We’re just in the planning stages now.”
The ad hoc group leading this stage of the process of planning and building a new senior center will not wait for the last minute to finish the feasability study. The deadline for completion, at least to secure the money from the estate of David Parsons, is the middle of May.
Linnehan said, “We’re hoping to have everything in place by the end of March.”