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Seniors offer input on plan for new center
By Kelly Wilkinson
A group of seniors and a few others came out to a public forum last week to provide input and reaction to preliminary sketches for the new senior center, which will be located at Sunnyvale Community Center on Remington Drive.
This past July, City Council unanimously approved plans for a $25 million, 23,000-square-foot center to replace the current complex which operates out of an old elementary school on McKinley. After a 15-year lease which ended in 1987, the school district raised the rent to market price, prompting the city to explore the possibility of building its own center.
John Lawrence, the city's leisure services manager, project manager Marty Hochroth of the Steinberg Architect Group, and Diane Carstens of Geriatric Services, Inc. each made informal presentations to the nearly 25-person group, outlining goals and details of the proposed center. The building will include a central lobby, a large multi-purpose room, a services center and several activity areas as well as a kitchen and office space.
Hochroth detailed two proposed locations for the center. The first places the center at the southern end of the community center grounds, which would allow for more isolation and views of the lagoon; the second clusters the center with the existing buildings.
Carstens said she expected the majority of the feedback to favor a separate location and expressed surprise when feedback indicated many residents preferred the building be incorporated into the community center.
Carol Peterson, a Sunnyvale resident and senior, was one of those in attendance who said she preferred the site fused with the four other buildings on the property..
"I think it's important that we mix in with others and not isolate ourselves," she said. "Are we so old that we need to be by ourselves? As far as I'm concerned, being nearer to everything is a plus--so I'll feel like I'm part of the community."
One resident, Ken Cook, said he was concerned that a building separate from the rest of the center would encroach on residential areas.
"One of the aspects there now is that the buildings are set back quite a ways and the green space gives you a sense of distance between what are pretty sizable buildings," said Cook, who lives just south of the arboretum. "What's going to happen is that you're bringing a very large building literally on top of a small residential street."
Peterson and many others in the group also addressed the question of whether the building should be one or two stories to best accommodate the seniors. In July, councilmembers directed the architect to design a one-story building. Some saw the direction as a presumption that seniors were incapable of climbing the stairs of a two-story structure. One senior called the decision "very narrow thinking."
In terms of the building's design, Lawrence said it is important to keep in mind the issue of future expansion. A study conducted by five surrounding counties estimates that Santa Clara County will experience the greatest boom in the number of senior citizens in the Bay Area. From 1990 to 2010, the report projects the number of senior citizens will increase 93 percent, from the current 242,000 to an estimated 467,000.
"There's a huge boom of older adults coming in, and we just don't have the facilities," Lawrence said. "We have two clubs located at the community center right now and we don't even have a room big enough to house them."
Another public input meeting will be held at the community center May 20 at 7:30 p.m. before the Parks and Recreation Department holds a hearing June 9. The results of that hearing will be presented to City Council sometime later this summer.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
