PVPC recommends renovation, expansion of senior center

Date: 1/8/2015

LONGMEADOW – The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission recommended a substantial renovation and expansion of the Greenwood Senior Center at the Jan. 5 Select Board meeting.

According to the Longmeadow Senior Center Assessment report, a 69-page document prepared by the regional planning body and presented by Town Manager Stephen Crane, a renovation done with its recommendations in mind would cost an estimated $4.1 to $4.6 million.

The PVPC outlined three potential scenarios based upon the finding of its study, which was funded through a citizen’s petition at Town Meeting – do nothing and continue current operations, renovate and expand the current facility or build a new senior center at Turner Park with a total cost of more than $5.1 million.

“They basically said option two would be the recommended option to pursue,” Crane said. “There’s a lot of information in the report and we could certainly discuss it moving forward. There isn’t really a clear next step.”

Crane also pointed out that 63 percent of respondents to the questionnaire said the current center met their needs and said the survey data did not “establish a mandate for a new building entirely, especially when you look at that catch-all question.”

According to the report based on the PVPC’s findings, a senior center that would best meet the town’s needs would need 12,000 to 15,000 square feet of space with the potential for future expansion, including a 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot multipurpose room, a kitchen, lounge, library, lobby, storage and specialized rooms; 100 to 150 parking spaces; “program based” design and functionality; a centralized entrance; and private office and wellness space.

The current Adult Center facility, originally built as a school in 1956, measures approximately 11,250 square feet. With roughly 2,000 square feet dedicated to the Board of Health, Veterans Services, the Friends of the Council on Aging, a thrift shop and food pantry, plus the wide hallways taking up an additional 1,2000 square feet, the center has approximately 8,000 square feet of usable space.

Crane explained the assessment process was broken into multiple components and the one that directly involved residents was not one in which people widely participated.

“The first is a survey – we sent out over 2,000 surveys and got back 113 or something like that, so a pretty low response rate, which I was a little surprised at – but it asked a variety of questions about the facility, the services, the programs, the staff,” Crane said. “The responses we got were thorough; I just think we were hoping for a higher rate of return.”

Selectman Mark Gold also noted of the survey responses the town received, only approximately 85 were Longmeadow residents.

The assessment also utilized census information, compared the town to other comparable communities, including East Longmeadow, Hampden and Westborough, and ranked already identified potential locations for new or expanded facilities.

 Crane added he met with the task force assembled to tackle the senior center issue to discuss the preliminary findings in the report and credited the PVPC with taking those discussions into consideration.

“That discussion really radically changed the outcome of the report,” he said. “Their preliminary findings, when they presented them to the task force, the task force had some concerns about some of the assumptions the PVPC had made and expressed that and the PVPC went back [to address those].”

As an example, Crane said the PVPC initially ranked the sites without giving consideration to ownership during site evaluations.

The Greenwood site was identified as “the most desirable” in the report Turner Park was also ranked highly, but was not as desirable largely because of the potential loss of recreation land. Bliss Park and Strople Field were also considered. Strople Field was considered a good option in terms of area because of its central location in town, but the library’s ownership of the land and heavy use of the adjacent ball field made it less desirable. Bliss Park was not highly rated due to topography, wetland and drainage concerns. Cordis House was also studied, but deemed to be impractical.

Crane said a renovated and expanded center is “within reach,” but while considering that option, it must be weighed against other town needs.

He suggested during the budgeting process allocating money for preliminary renovation designs, explaining the town has an on-call engineering firm that could perform the work.

“You have to balance out a new [Department of Public Works] facility; the School Committee is initiating an effort for a new middle school,” he said. “There are many things going on and we have to make sure that the board and Town Meeting come up with a set of priorities that they want to commit to.”

Steve Walker of Grove Property Fund and Matt Wittmer of Phase Zero also made another presentation to the board with regard to its proposal to expand the Longmeadow Shops. A zoning change from A1 Residential to Business for the parcel of land owned by Grove Property Fund between the Longmeadow Shops and the First Church of Christ, Scientist will be voted upon Feb. 3.

Wittmer called the plans for the shopping center’s expansion “a work in progress” and called the zoning change the first step in a long process that would include traffic and drainage studies and input from the town.

He added among the improvements would be the elimination of “dead end parking” areas that require motorists to back out of parking rows if all the spaces are full and creating a “leaner, more intuitive parking area” with a total gain of 139 spaces. The plan comes in compliance with the town’s parking requirements, something the current layout does not.

CVS Pharmacy would be moved to a store with a larger footprint and a drive-through window that would be accessed through a slipway on Williams Street.

Calling the pharmacy a “destination retailer” that generates a great amount of traffic itself, Wittmer said, “By relocating CVS to the eastern portion of the site and providing a dedicated entrance from Williams Street, it no longer interferes with the parking and access to the center.”

Other improvements with regard to parking and traffic include new raised crosswalks, which improve drivers’ visibility of pedestrians and act as “traffic calming” elements.