New East Hampton Senior Center Coming
Plans are moving forward to replace East Hampton Town’s senior citizen center on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton with a new, larger building on the same site.
The center, where the town’s Human Services Department offers nutrition, adult day care, recreation, health, and social programs, is inadequate for current needs, Eric Schantz, a town planner, told the town board on Tuesday. And, he said, with the number of older adults in town consistently rising over the last 50 years — a third of the population is now over 55 — the need for senior services will also increase.
The existing facility, in a building a century old, was once a watering hole called the Cottage Inn, Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Fred Overton, who grew up here, recalled. It is “very actively used,” Mr. Schantz said, and is showing its age. It has served as the town’s senior center for 30 years.
“There are probably not too many senior centers on Long Island where the building is older than the people that are there,” Mr. Schantz said.
After a senior-services committee called for replacing the senior center “with one that can serve the entire community,” in 2014, Mr. Schantz worked with other planners, human services staff, and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez to analyze demographic data and future needs and to review senior center designs in order to develop the proposal presented this week. While other sites were considered, he said, the group found the current location — two centrally located acres within walking distance of several affordable housing complexes, including the Windmill I and II centers for senior citizens — to be the best option and able to accommodate a larger center and more parking.
A draft plan calls for a two-story building with basement, 50 percent larger than the existing center. It would accommodate a larger kitchen and dining room as well as activity rooms, including a computer and media room, a wellness room for yoga, tai chi, and meditation, and a game, cards, and book club room. It would include automatic doors and hallways wide enough to accommodate walkers, wheelchairs, and scooters, a private restroom and walk-in shower for adult day care patrons, and a covered entrance for pickups and dropoffs. An outdoor area would be maintained for walking, picnicking, and relaxing.
The rough plan developed by the committee would be vetted and possibly revised by an architect. According to a preliminary timetable, an architect could be selected by June and construction begun by May 2017.
No cost estimates have yet been developed, but a draft capital budget for 2016 through 2018 calls for borrowing just over $3 million for the senior center project, some of which would be offset by the proposed sale of several town properties.