HADLEY — Those overseeing the building of a new senior center say they’re undeterred by American Legion Post 271’s lawsuit aimed at stopping the project over concerns about parking.
“We’re still planning to build the senior center,” Jane Nevinsmith, chairwoman of the Senior Center Building Committee, said Thursday.
The Select Board met Wednesday in executive session to discuss the Land Court lawsuit and a possible memorandum of understanding between the town and Legion for use of the new parking, but Town Administrator David Nixon said no votes were taken.
Nevinsmith said she hasn’t been given any new instructions and legal questions are being handled by Nixon and the Select Board in consultation with town counsel.
While Michael Pill, the Northampton attorney representing the Legion, said a resolution would be as simple as moving the proposed building from the overflow parking lot, Nevinsmith said this is not practical for the creation of a “campus center” that would include the senior center and a new library sharing a parking lot.
Planning Board member John Mieczkowski, who has expressed concern about the process that led to voters approving the $7.1 million, 12,050-square-foot building, said that having both a senior center and a new library on a shared site is not appropriate.
“This not a well-thought out plan,” Mieczkowski said. “The project was botched from day one.”
If the senior center were smaller, and the building were moved next to the new library, he said, it would mean sufficient parking for the municipal buildings and the Legion.
As a member of the Planning Board, he said he intends to vote against the site plans unless the project substantially changes or the senior center moves to a site in North Hadley that the town owns.
But Nevinsmith said traffic flow has been an important consideration for the plans, and if the parking area is not between the new buildings, that could be a problem for people getting in and out of the site.
Costs of a senior center may rise if the project is delayed, but the bigger risk is that the $3.9 million in state funding for a new library to replace Goodwin Library may be in jeopardy.
“A delay for the senior center is a serious problem for them,” Nevinsmith said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
