Plans For Future East Hampton Senior Citizens Center Presented To Town Board

Details of the new East Hampton Senior Community Center were presented publicly for the first time at an East Hampton Town Board work session on Tuesday.

The plan, previously estimated to cost $6.2 million, is to demolish the current 11,500-square-foot senior citizens center on Springs-Fireplace Road, which is about 100 years old, and remove trailers that currently provide extra space. Designed by Savik & Murray, an engineering firm out of Holbrook, the new building would be 18,730 square feet to allow more activities for the current and future senior citizen population of East Hampton Town.

Drazen Cackovic of Savik & Murray said the building will be two stories tall after it was determined that a three-story structure would be too expensive for the town. The building’s interior would have a hospital-sized elevator so that visitors using wheelchairs would have plenty of room to use it if needed. Although low ceilings were preferred by the architects, there would be wide corridors, with handrails, and natural light coming in through windows.

There will also be LED lighting installed with anti-glare design and a high-quality sound system throughout the building. Mr. Cackovic pointed out that the new lunch room would be twice the size of the current one, so that it can be divided into three sections if space is needed to set up card tables or a display for the new food pantry.

Other new additions to the indoors include a wellness room, a media room, three offices and a break room for employees.

Mr. Cackovic put equal emphasis on the outdoor elements of the new building. He said that there will be 116 parking spaces, with separate spaces for delivery trucks and buses, nearly double the 61 parking spaces at the current facility. It also would have a patio, a gazebo to protect visitors from rain and sun, a rose garden and a vegetable garden, recreation space, and a walking path with lighting. Solar panels are being considered for the roof.

While the board seemed to have no response to the presentation, positive or negative, Mary Ella Moeller, a town resident, expressed a few concerns after the presentation.

For one, she said she was worried that the new building’s outdoor recreation area would overtake the current facility’s outdoor recreation area behind the main building, which is dedicated to Ms. Moeller’s mother, Edith R. Parsons. Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez responded that the town could name the walking path, a garden or the recreation area after Ms. Parsons.

Ms. Moeller then asked if there were any plans to further expand the new building in 10 to 15 years if the senior population grows larger. “The senior population in East Hampton is exploding,” she said. “We’re not getting that many young people.”

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc responded that the site of the senior citizens center enter will most likely be “maxed out” when the new building is completed, and that there were “some options” available when that came to pass.

Mr. Cackovic said that the presentation of the basic schematics shows the building’s design at “30 to 40 percent complete.”

Pending Town Board approval, he said, the next step would be getting the design at 60 percent complete, meaning the specific details of what the building will have inside would have to be determined.