By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
The many-years-long effort to land a full-service senior center somewhere in Hopewell Valley rolled on at Monday night’s Hopewell Township Committee meeting.
Noting Mercer County has offered $500,000 matching grants to each of the Hopewell Valley’s three constituent towns for building such a center, Paul Pogorzelski, township administrator and engineer, summarized three possibilities for building the facility.
Backed by the Valley’s Senior Advisory Board, which had several members at the meeting, was establishing a senior center on or near the 25-acre Pennytown tract, bought by the township several years ago. Pennytown is at the junction of state Route 31 and county Route 654.
Other options addressed by Mr. Pogorzelski were continued use of the senior center on Reading Street in Pennington, an idea the SAB has frowned upon. That facility is about 2,500 square feet in size. The SAB says 10,000 square feet is needed for a center.
Mr. Pogorzelski said, without building a second story — which could incur the opposition of neighboring residents, he said — the building on Reading Street could be feasibly doubled in size to 5,000 square feet with parking improvements added. That would cost about $1.5 million, he estimated.
Mr. Pogorzelski added the construction of a new senior center building, on Pennytown or elsewhere would cost about $3 million for a 10,000-square-foot structure. Possible locations other than Pennytown he addressed included a 13-acre tract of land in northwest Pennington, just south of the Pennington Pointe residential development on the northbound side of Route 31.
He mentioned talks with Pennington Borough officials have indicated they could support only a 5,000-square-foot building there, however.
The third option addressed by Mr. Pogorzelski seemed the least feasible. It would be to build the senior center on land known locally as the Westrum tract, just north of Tree Farm Road on the southbound side of Route 31. The township owns the land, but its development potential is limited due to the proximity of a stream. State law sets strict boundaries on how close construction may take place to streams.
SAB Chairman Larry Mansier backed the Pennytown site and said expanding the senior center at Pennytown was not a good idea.
”That would be sending $1.5 million down the drain,” he said.
He said the SAB’s extensive researches on the issue show a 10,000-square-foot building is needed.
