Date: 8/25/2021
I was selected by the Wilbraham Board of Selectmen (BOS) to join the Senior Center Building Committee in November 2019. It was important to me to continue the completed work of the Senior Center Feasibility Committee and bring the conceptual work of a new Senior Center building in Wilbraham to fruition. Most Wilbraham community members agree that the current space leased from the Y is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of our senior community due to available space. The current size of the leased space in the Y is only 3,840 square feet, where experts on senior community centers suggest our Wilbraham community should have a senior center that has over 15,000 square feet to be able to provide service now and into the future, especially with this target demographic continuing to grow in Wilbraham.
The Senior Center Feasibility committee selected and worked with an architect, John Caitlin, who has a tremendous reputation for designing community senior centers that meet the social-emotional, physical and nutrition needs for our age 60-plus seniors. This group volunteered thousands of hours to ensure our seniors can have the resources available to make Wilbraham a better community for all. Mr. Caitlin has significant experience helping communities understand and bring new senior center building projects to the voting residents to decide whether to support a new investment for the senior cohorts. This building committee has worked synergistically with the Wilbraham BOS, finance committee, capital project committee and Wilbraham’s professional managers to have a special town meeting on Oct. 18. The collective group continues to recommend the optimal way to finance this new Senior Center is using our cash reserves, our stabilization fund, using current bond limits of the current tax base and a possible minor debt exclusion that will be voted on in a special election.
The current Senior Center Building Committee is composed of a talented group of volunteers, invested in our community that have years of hands-on experience in both the construction trades and direct service to the senior community. We are working diligently to bring an optimal recommendation for a new senior center that achieves the objectives of building a new town-owned, dedicated senior center that meets the social/emotional, physical and nutritional needs of Wilbraham’s growing senior community.
We will have multiple presentations in the next few weeks, and we invite our neighbors to come learn about our recommendation, ask questions, and vote to support this important project for our community. We will share the conceptual building renderings, the design and use of the space and how the project will be financed. We look forward to your support. Please attend the Special Town Meeting on Oct. 18, and cast your vote at both this meeting and the special election to approve the financing of this project.
Jay Kahn
Wilbraham
