An overview drawing of the proposed Westfield Senior Center that will be located on Noble Street. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – Construction of the long-awaited senior center began yesterday as crews from Forish Construction Inc., of Mainline Drive began site preparation at the estate of Mary Noble.
Council on Aging Executive Director Tina Gorman said that senior citizens, in particular those living at the Ely-Dolan Apartments, located directly behind the Noble Street construction site, were calling and emailing her.
“I was getting a blow-by-blow morning report,” Gorman said this morning. “There is activity, they’re going, and it’s very exciting. They’re staging the area, putting up construction fencing. There’s a Sanican on the site.”
Forish Construction submitted the low bid of $6,184,541 and a combined price of $6,324,625 for the construction and six alternates, for the two-story, 20,000-square-foot senior center construction project on Noble Street.
Construction of the Council on Aging senior center began yesterday following the unanimous June 30 vote of the City Council to give final approval to the $7.5 million bond to finance the project. That bond approval vote was followed by a 20-day waiting period required by state law to allow citizens to challenge the bond sale.
Gorman said that “technically the contract started on July 21 (2014)” initiating a 14-month construction cycle.
“It will be finished, if all goes well, by September of 2015,” Gorman said. “There will be a formal ground-breaking ceremony at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 19, followed by a reception at the senior center on Main Street. We scheduled it early in the morning because it tends to be very hot at that time of the summer.”
Typically, the actual construction project is financed through short term borrowing called bond anticipation notes (BANs). The bond is actually sold following completion of the project when the exact dollar amount is known and is often less than the dollar number authorized by the City Council.
“We’re proud to be participating in this project,” Forish said earlier this summer. “From my perspective it’s a great project for all of the senior citizens of Westfield. It’s been a long patient wait for them.”
“This will be a facility to serve the community for years to come,” Forish said, “and several hundred construction workers will be involved from all of the different trades.”
The scope of work will also include students of Westfield Vocational Technical High School who will perform much of the finished landscaping in conjunction with Forish Construction. The student involvement was incorporated into the construction work to contain the cost of the project.
