Price tag up, senior center to get 2d look

First came the sticker shock. Now Town Meeting will be asked to decide, for a second time, whether to revamp the town's senior center, after a recent cost estimate came in at $6.3 million - a whopping $2 million more than voters had approved last spring.

The decision to hold another vote came after town officials asked for a legal opinion about whether the initial approval would be valid, given the substantially higher project cost.

While the wording of the debt exclusion question on the ballot last spring did not include a cost amount, public discussions beforehand had indicated the lower price tag. The town counsel said a new vote was not legally necessary. "However," said Westford Town Administrator Jodi Ross, "politically, that may not be the case."

Selectmen agreed to put the measure on this fall's Town Meeting agenda but have yet to take a position on it. Their decision could come at their next meeting on Oct. 14, Board of Selectmen vice chairman Robert Jefferies said last week.

Town Meeting, set to convene on Oct. 20, could reject paying for a more expensive project. But Ross said that would not necessarily kill the project. Local officials could decide to hold yet another townwide vote - for another debt exclusion to pay the additional cost, she said.

However it plays out, though, officials say they hope residents will agree it is high time for a new facility, which has been under discussion for the past decade and is now needed more than ever for the town's growing senior population.

"We think it's a very practical design," said Thomas Mahanna, chairman of the Permanent Town Building Committee. "It's certainly not an extravagant building. We hope the town supports it."

As baby boomers age, many communities such as Westford are opting for a new place to hold programs for senior populations that are growing - and outgrowing existing facilities. During these troubled economic times, though, big-ticket items such as senior centers do not always get the nod from voters.

The prospects for convincing taxpayers to underwrite a new center vary from place to place, as do costs. In Belmont three years ago, for example, Town Meeting appropriated $6.3 million for a facility, now under construction, according to Assistant Town Administrator Jeffrey B. Conti. But this June, Dedham voters nixed a debt exclusion override for $8.7 million for a new center, said Town Administrator William G. Keegan Jr.

Meanwhile, Natick officials are wrestling with whether to build a multigenerational center - for old and young - for $14.5 million. Town Administrator Martha L. White said a town building committee, currently examining whether the cost could be lowered, expects to file a debt exclusion tax-levy override as a ballot question next March.

Groton is also weighing the idea of a multigenerational center at a restored country club building, but has no cost estimate, and no timetable on when to present a proposal to the public, said Martha A. Campbell, director of the current senior center.

Approval for such facilities can depend on a community's demographics, of course. In Westford, when officials first began using the existing center in 1994, seniors in town over age 60 numbered 1,200, while there are now about 3,300, said Joanne Sheehan, the town's director of elder services. A feasibility study for a new center estimated that the number of elders would grow to more than 5,300 by 2020, representing 22 percent of the town's entire population.

The numbers convinced town officials to begin exploring renovating or replacing the existing center, which was using the 136-year-old former Cameron School. The center currently does not provide enough room for the kinds of programs seniors want, said Sheehan.

"The boomers are looking for more fitness and wellness activities, but there's no place to get a workout," she said.

In addition to exercise space, officials want to offer seniors a library, garden, an adult day-care program, and private places for social workers, medical professionals, and outreach coordinators to meet with clients, according to the feasibility study, released in January 2007.

Separate rooms are also needed for arts and crafts, games, computer use, classes, a woodworking shop, family meetings, offices, and storage. A commercial kitchen and pantry are required for serving food on-site and preparing meals for Meals on Wheels, delivered to shut-ins. The Cameron building also needs extensive work to make it energy-efficient, the study says.

Renovation was chosen over new construction partly because many seniors had fond memories of attending school there. The study estimated that the town could accommodate all the desired services at a cost of $3.8 million.

In May 2007, Town Meeting appropriated $385,000 for design and engineering. Voters approved the rest of the amount needed by approving a Proposition 2 1/2 override debt exclusion at the ballot box that September.

Since then, however, construction costs have skyrocketed, said Mahanna, whose committee steered the proposal through Town Meeting and the vote.

Connie Paige can be reached at connie_paige@yahoo.com.