Updated plans for the East Hampton Town senior center in Amagansett, or for what Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is now calling the Center for Modern Aging, were presented to the town board on Tuesday by R2 Architecture, a joint venture between Ross Barney Architects and Ronnette Riley Architect of New York City and Bridgehampton.
The detailed renderings of the $28 million building elicited healthy debate among board members, with Councilman Tom Flight questioning many aspects of the design. He worried the town could be missing an opportunity, specifically criticized the building’s storage plans, and pressed for the addition of a basement.
“Tom, you’re seeing it more like you go over to Goodfriend storage, where this becomes the storage center for the town?” asked the supervisor.
“Absolutely,” said Councilman Flight. He argued that a basement under the 22,000-square-foot structure (the current senior center is just over 10,000 square feet) could serve as a central repository for the town’s Red Cross supplies and be an asset for emergency response. “The addition of a basement is both an economical and environmentally progressive way to add space.”
Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte agreed, “I think this could be so much more. Rarely do you wish you had less space after you built it.”
“If we put a basement in, we need two egresses and an elevator. That takes up space on the first floor,” said Ronnette Riley. Councilwoman Cate Rogers also said a basement would complicate matters. “For ease of operations to have everything on one floor is optimal,” she said. While Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez warned, “There would be months if not a year delay if we’re adding a basement.”
Long before the board went underground, however, Lena Reiff, an architect with Ross Barney Architects, discussed the overall site plan and the exterior changes that have been made since October. The siting of the building on the seven-acre flag lot at 403 Abraham’s Path hasn’t changed. “One of the big goals was to leave as much of the site untouched as possible,” Ms. Reiff said, “so we’re using the flattest portion of the lot to reduce grading and to allow most of the forest to remain.” The building will not be visible from the road.
A long driveway, flanked on either side by overflow parking spots, leads to either a 64-space parking lot on the left or a drop-off at the center’s entrance to the right. The drive continues past and around the center to a smaller employee lot, delivery area, and pickup location for a grab-and-go kitchen that is doubling in size.
A previous version of the plan had the main parking area canopied with solar arrays. “Our intention is that all the electric that we need is generated on site and the heating and cooling is geothermal,” said Ms. Riley. The solar has now been moved to the roof of the building. Ms. Reiff said the commercial kitchen was the big driver of energy use and that the building could generate 420 kilowatts per hour with the solar panels.
“The goal of this was net zero, but could it be net positive?” asked Councilman Flight, wondering if both the roof and the main parking lot could contain solar panels, with excess energy stored in batteries. “The battery alone would be in a 40-by-40-foot area that would have to be set aside,” said Steve Tsou, senior project architect for Ronnette Riley Architect. “It’s a fairly large area, but we can explore that.”
Mr. Flight also wondered if the 73 parking spots on the plans were enough. “The building can hold many more people,” he said, with up to 228 seated, or in some sort of activity. Town Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez suggested that programming could be shifted to accommodate the space. “If lunch is really popular, and you have 100 people there, you’re not scheduling tai chi and art at the same time,” she said.
Another change is the building’s appearance. Previously shingled with wood and metal, renderings now show it clad in off-white fiber cement board in a board and batten design, its vertical lines blending up into a low sloped, light gray standing-seam roof. Ms. Riley said in keeping with the aesthetics of the coastal community, the countertops inside would be recycled sea glass and seashells, and the color scheme soft blues and greens with wood accents.
The three wings of the center, shaped like a windmill, or a squat Y, remain the same, with one wing devoted to the Department of Human Services, another to senior activities, and the third to a commercial kitchen, storage, and building mechanicals. The nexus of the Y, through which the public enters, features a spacious lobby with seating and a dining room. Ceiling height was reduced from 25 feet in previous plans down to 15 feet, “To bring more intimacy into the room,” said Ms. Riley.
“Most of the extra square footage is going into common area uses, activities, things the public is going to be involved in,” she said. She highlighted the flexibility of the building’s uses. A conference room could be used not just for the center, but for other town purposes; the dining room could be configured in many ways. “We can pull out a dance floor,” she said. Down the activity wing, a wellness room could be used for yoga, but also for lectures. The specific use of an arts and crafts room was amorphous. “We imagine this room will discover what it wants to be,” she said.
The six restrooms are all accessible and large, “So you don’t have to stand on the toilet to open the door and to get in and get out. I think bathrooms are really important,” said Ms. Riley. “If there’s anything I hear from various seniors from other centers we’ve done is, they appreciate having the space to move around, and for them to be very accommodating.”
Councilman Flight questioned whether the Health and Human Services Department needed all the office space, or a break room. At present, the department has six offices operating from a trailer, and the new design calls for nine offices. “I don’t think it’s an excessive amount of room for what Human Services provides to the town,” said Councilwoman Rogers. “We’re looking at an opportunity to design to need. It’s not just to compare to what we have now, but to look at what is a model for when we redesign every other space.”
“I don’t want to make this into a complete community center where the seniors no longer have their special place, but I think we can do both,” said Councilman Calder-Piedmonte. “Frankly, what I’ve heard from a lot of community members is, ‘Well, I don’t use the senior center, and now we’re doubling the size.’ How would it apply to them? I think there are ways this building would apply to a broader group of seniors and even community members at large. We should proactively talk about that. Once you build a building you don’t have the option to go back.”
“We’ll build whatever you want. We’re here with changes to our plan in response to the community and in response to the board’s direction,” said Ms. Riley. “We’re just a facilitator to give you what you want. But then my question is, ‘Do you really want that?’ Everything that we’re doing is trying to satisfy a variety of issues. No right answer, but we feel like we came to the optimum, efficient building.”
