WESTFIELD – The design of the proposed Senior Center is still being tweaked to find a compromise between utility and cost, Council on Aging Executive Director Tina Gorman said Tuesday.
Gorman provided the Council on Aging board an update on the building design, which initially was about 25,000 square feet, but came with a $10 million price tag.
The Senior Center Building Committee directed the project managers and architects to revise the building design by chopping $3 million from the estimated cost.
Gorman said the building design came back at 16,000 square feet, which she said “is not big enough” to provide the essential facilities identified for the new center. The building committee members and city officials continue to work with the design team with a goal of presenting a revision that meets both facility and cost goals at the Sept. 25 building committee meeting.
Gorman said that she submitted a request to Mayor Daniel M. Knapik to “use more of the bond money for construction” be eliminating some of the cost of the building design from the bond package as originally proposed.
Knapik submitted a funding request of $300,000 to the City Council at the Sept. 5 session to fund the 25 percent design documents for the Senior Center Project. Knapik proposed that the council, which sent the request to its Finance Committee for further review, approve the funding with money from the city’s stabilization account, which will require nine affirmative votes of council members.
In other business the council members reviewed the (2014) COA grant proposal and annual report submitted annually to the Executive Officer of Elder Affairs.
Gorman said that the annual report highlights programs developed locally to serve specific needs of the senior citizen community. Westfield has a senior population of 8,000 residents.
One of those locally developed programs, Retire the Fire, is being recognized by the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Gorman has been invited to present details of that program at the Sept. 26 Massachusetts Public Fire & Life Safety Educational conference to be held in Westford.
“We are being considered as a pilot program which the State Fire Marshal would like to replicate in other communities,” Gorman said. “It’s a low cost collaborative program.”
Gorman said the Fire Marshall’s Office has developed a senior safety grant program which will assist other communities in adopting the Westfield Retire the Fire Program.
