JEFF GEARINO Southwest Wyoming bureau | Posted: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 12:00 am
GREEN RIVER - After a decade of searching, frustration and effort, Young-at-Heart Senior Center officials are finally getting close to building a new, $8.7 million facility in Rock Springs.
Sweetwater County commissioners gave the ailing project a shot in the arm Tuesday, pledging $1.5 million over the next two fiscal years to the project.
Young-at-Heart officials said in addition to a new senior center, the facility would boast a wing to house the center's home health care programs and a day care wing to help ease the county's overall day care shortage.
The center will also house the Sweetwater Transit Authority Resources, which will run its bus services from the new facility.
"This is going to be a community center for Rock Springs, as well as a center for seniors," Young-at-Heart executive director Jeanine Cox said. "We started working on this in 1996 … and we feel this is a good opportunity to bring in that funding now to build this new center."
Cox told commissioners the center's board is trying to raise between $1.6 million and $2 million this month as part of a new "Bridge to the Future" fundraising campaign.
She said next month, center officials will apply for a $5 million State Loan and Investment Board emergency grant to pay for the majority of construction costs.
Cox said the local money, if it can be raised, will be used as a 25 percent match required for the grant. The fundraising campaign has garnered $390,000 thus far.
Rock Springs Mayor Tim Kaumo lauded the project and noted the city of Rock Springs is contributing $1.5 million to the effort.
"We look at this as not just a senior center, but a community center with several different functions," Kaumo said.
"That day care attachment … will be extremely beneficial to the county as a whole," he said. "It's time (for a new center), but we're going to need some help from the county to get this done."
Long search
Young-at-Heart officials have been searching for a new site since 1996, after outgrowing current quarters in downtown Rock Springs.
The city-owned building on Pilot Butte Street is too small for the center's growing membership. Officials said the facility doesn't have enough parking, and there are groundwater and mold problems in the building's basement floor, along with high carbon dioxide levels.
"The old building has a lot of health and safety problems," Cox told commissioners. "We've simply outgrown the building with the sheer numbers of seniors we have."
Cox said the center has experienced a five-fold increase in the numbers of seniors using the center and its variety of services since the facility opened in 1980. The center serves about 25 percent more people than it did in 2002, according to center data.
Cox said for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the center served about 2,700 people, not all of them seniors.
The center routinely serves people under the age of 60 as part of the facility's home care and grandparents-raising-grandchildren programs. "We now serve anybody of any age if they qualify for our programs," she said.
Cox said on any given day, the center serves about 400 people in their homes across the county and serves 267 people at the center itself each day. The center has a staff of 45 and an annual budget of about $1 million.
The planned 33,000-square-foot center will be constructed on a tract of Bureau of Land Management land located on the corner of Reagan and Sweetwater streets on the west side of the city.
Plan One Architects recently completed the facility design, Cox said. The center hopes to break ground by March 2008, and construction should take about 14 to 16 months.
In 2000, center officials estimated the cost of the new facility at about $5 million. Cox said inflation and increased construction material costs has raised the price tag by about $4 million since then.
"If we wait even one year … Plan One estimates that (construction) costs would jump another third," Kaumo pointed out. "If we don't do this now, we may see a substantial increase in the cost."
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.