There will be no basement at the new East Hampton Town senior center, or Center for Modern Aging, as Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is calling it.
During the liaison reports at the East Hampton Town Board work session on Tuesday, the supervisor addressed a request from the week before, by Councilman Tom Flight, that the center include a basement. She received cost estimates from R2 Architects to add a basement to the 22,000-square-foot building that ranged from $250 to $400 per square foot.
“It would cost from between $5.5 million to $9 million to include a basement in the building,” she said. However, many other factors could potentially drive the price higher, depending on its use. “If we’re storing important items down there, does it need dehumidifying? It would also require additional consultant fees on top of the construction costs,” she said. Further, the site plan has already been developed to accommodate the type of deliveries that the current senior center receives. If the basement doubled as a town storage facility, requiring larger trucks, the driveway and parking spots might need to be reconfigured.
“It’s not really consistent with our goals for increasing resiliency in the town,” said Councilwoman Cate Rogers, adding another layer of criticism to the basement. “We’d rather see storage above ground.” Basements can flood, and if mechanicals were located there, the building couldn’t act as a Red Cross-designated emergency center, another idea promoted by Councilman Flight. “It would require a whole new drainage plan, which would also add additional cost. I think a basement, instead of the design that was proposed, would be difficult to justify,” she concluded.
Mr. Flight explained that part of the discussion was about economics, and stated that the comparative cost to build the same amount of storage on a different piece of town land should be part of the analysis.
“We do own commercial-industrial zoned land at the airport,” said Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez. “We can certainly look into our municipal storage needs.” She leaned further into her critiques of turning the center into a Red Cross-designated emergency center. “When you become an emergency shelter, the town is not able to use the building,” she said, and explained that during Covid, the kitchen at the senior center pushed out 91,000 meals for seniors. “If that became a secondary shelter, our staff wouldn’t be able to go in there.” Red Cross-designated shelters have strict rules about separating families seeking shelter from staff. “I think we’re on a better track keeping it as a warming and cooling center, where town staff can always operate, where they can make meals for seniors in our community as opposed to trying to make it into an emergency shelter.”
“I would like to continue to explore it,” said Councilman Flight. He said depending on the extent of an emergency, up to 3,000 people might be displaced, but current town shelters can only accommodate 800 people. “We might need that space to be flexible.”
“We could take a look at what type of shelters we need,” said Councilwoman Rogers, “and work with the Red Cross to take a look at our plan for sheltering people when you’re this geographically isolated.”
The Montauk Playhouse has been designated in the past as a Red Cross shelter, but the existing heating and cooling system couldn’t support that use, said Councilman Flight, “So we potentially lost that as a shelter.”
“The items you’re talking about are quite necessary,” said Councilwoman Rogers, “but I don’t feel like shoehorning them into an existing construction project that’s been developed over time.”
“Humbly, I disagree. The space piece, the storage piece, I understand. I still have my reservations on it, bluntly, but from an emergency perspective, I think it would be a misstep not to have this space have the capability.”
“It’s something we have been vetting publicly for the last couple of years,” said the supervisor. “I think we need to move forward with the senior center with the plans as drafted with the changes we discussed last Tuesday.”
Seeking a third way, Councilman David Lys floated an idea that he said occurred to him while listening to the discussion: Adapt the nearby Sportime building as a potential shelter. He noted that he was comfortable moving forward with the senior center plans as they stood.
In an email, Councilman Flight said the cost to add the basement, “which is already many people’s primary concern with this project, makes it prohibitive. As the supervisor mentioned, we have the capability to use other land for town storage needs and can potentially do it for less. I continue to have concerns about our current storage approach. With that said, I am glad we had this discussion. I am appreciative that we have done some economic due diligence in the decision making. I think the next big piece for us to discuss as a board is how we propose to finance the project.”
