The Council on Aging is planning to again request funding for its proposed addition to Hildreth House at the 2022 Spring Town Meeting. The council submitted a request to the Capital Planning and Investment Committee (CPIC) for $4.3 million for fiscal 2023, and the committee reviewed that request at its Oct. 20 meeting.
The proposed addition is currently designed as a single-story, stand-alone building, to be constructed just to the east of Hildreth House. The space would consist of a combination dining and multipurpose room that could seat up to 90, a kitchen, and handicapped-accessible bathrooms. Last spring’s request for $4.3 million to fund the addition received only about 40% approval at both Spring Town Meeting and the polls.
Council on Aging (COA) Chair Beth Williams told CPIC members that the group’s plans to hold public presentations about the addition before and at Town Meeting fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, she said, many Town Meeting participants either didn’t know much about the project or had misconceptions about it. Williams also speculated that residents were not in a spending mood, given the fiscal uncertainty brought about by COVID-19. But, COA Director Debbie Thompson told the committee, “The reality is we still need the space—nothing has changed.”
Is Friendly Crossways an alternative?
CPIC Chair John Seely told Williams he was encouraged that council members had followed up on a suggestion made at Town Meeting by the owner of Friendly Crossways, a youth hostel on Littleton County Road that is currently for sale. The owner had said the property might work as a senior center, so council members visited it on Oct. 14 to evaluate that possibility.
Following the council’s visit, Williams wrote a report on the details of the property, which consists of a 10,000-square-foot, two-story 1880 farmhouse with 17 bedrooms, six full baths and two half-baths, two meeting rooms (one large, one small), and a residential kitchen with multiple appliances. There is also a barn on the property. The grounds consist of about 4.5 cleared acres and 10 forested acres. The 2020 valuation is about $1.3 million. There are an additional 10 acres that Williams said are available for purchase separately and could possibly be used for senior housing.
At the CPIC meeting Williams told Seeley that while Friendly Crossways is a “great site,” there is no elevator, only one bathroom is handicapped-accessible, and there are multiple areas with steps, making much of the building noncompliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In addition, only the large meeting room is air-conditioned, and a full-time maintenance person would likely be needed to take care of the building and grounds. But Seeley suggested it might be possible to link the purchase of the Friendly Crossways property and its additional 10 acres with the work the Planning Board is doing on senior housing, which could make the idea more appealing to the town. Williams said the COA had forwarded the Friendly Crossways information to the Planning Board.
CPIC member Nate Finch asked about the Bromfield House site as an alternative location for what the council wanted to build, given that, in his recollection of the cost estimate for the addition, there was “$1 million just for dealing with the fact that it’s on ledge.” Williams responded that ledge is everywhere in Harvard, and Thompson said the Bromfield House site, which is 1.9 acres, is likely too small. Despite Finch’s assertion, the cost estimate for the project that was submitted to CPIC a year ago showed an allowance of $175,000 for ledge removal and $300,000 for all the sitework.
Alice von Loesecke, CPIC member and Select Board chair, said she thought one of the reasons people voted against the project was that it would have left “a lot of undedicated space” in the existing Hildreth House. She asked if the council would again consider connecting Hildreth House to the proposed addition or finding another site. Thompson said both of those alternatives would require more design work, and she questioned if the town would be willing to spend money on that. COA alternate member Connie Larrabee said it wasn’t accurate that large parts of Hildreth House would be unused. The kitchen would become the health room, the living room and dining room would be used as they are now, for small group activities, and the staff would continue to have their offices there.
Finch also suggested that the COA promote its proposed addition not as a senior center, but as a community center that could be used by groups of all ages. Williams said it was always the intention that the building be used on evenings and weekends by other groups.
Build a community center and sell Hildreth House and old library?
But CPIC member Theresa Jardon said the town should find another space where it could build a $4 million community center for all ages. She said a new center could not only house the senior center, it would also allow the town to have a Parks and Recreation department with recreational activities in the community center. Those activities could obviate the need for the old library, she added, allowing the town to sell both the Hildreth House and the old library.
Seeley said that in the time the COA has before this comes up again at Town Meeting, it should develop a series of communications about the proposed addition and get feedback from the public. Those communications, he said, should point out alternatives and why they were rejected.
At the Council on Aging meeting later that day, members discussed the alternatives proposed at the CPIC meeting. Guy Oliva said the type of community center proposed by Jardon would likely cost a lot more than $4.3 million. As for Friendly Crossways, Larrabee said the building is both “not what we need and much more than we need.” Oliva agreed, adding it was also an old building that needed maintenance, but he acknowledged that the adjacent acreage that could be purchased for senior housing might be attractive to the town.
Members also said the Bromfield House site had been discussed before, and the main drawback was the heavy traffic in that area, especially at school pickup and drop-off times. It was unclear if that situation would still exist when the new school is finished.
COA members agreed they have time to inform people about the proposed senior center addition, and in future presentations they need to focus more on the community center aspect of what they are proposing to build. The council has a little over a year before CPIC will be passing judgment on fiscal 2023 requests, and about 1.5 years until 2022 Spring Town Meeting, where the funding request would be put to a vote.
