Seniors seek support for center

Laguna Beach Seniors Inc. is drumming up support for the proposed center on Third Street as the project comes down to the wire.

Plans for the community/senior center will be presented to the Planning Commission on Oct. 25. Seniors and center supporters are urged to attend the meeting.

“We need to show up in force to show support for the building,” said Ann Quilter, center capital campaign co-chair.

The Seniors still need to raise about $500,000 to fulfill their funding requirement.

Recent criticisms of the design by some neighbors of the center — who are lobbying for a redesign of the City Council-approved plan — have put the Seniors on edge.

Seniors President Lee Anderson warns that further attempts to revise the plans could kill the project.

“A capital campaign can only go on so long,” Anderson said. “If we do not break ground in April, 2007 as scheduled, that could well be the end of the Susie Q [senior center].”

As proposed, the $15-million joint center will have 8,000 square feet for the exclusive use of seniors, plus another 7,500 square feet available to the seniors as well as the rest of the community and landscaped outdoor space.

The design submitted by LPA was approved 4-0 by the City Council in June 2005. Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman recused herself because a state law prohibits elected officials from voting on projects within 500 feet of property they own.

A dirty trick by Mother Nature delayed the project. City resources earmarked for the center were diverted to the restoration of city infrastructure devastated by the Bluebird Canyon landslide.

The delay was costly.

Laguna Beach Seniors board member Chris Quilter is rewriting applications for $250,000 in grants that the seniors were unable to take advantage of because of time constraints: one from the county Community Development Block Grant Program and the other from Weingarten Foundation, which helps build projects.

“Further delays are unacceptable,” Quilter said. “We are not terrified that a delay would sink the project, but we are a bit peevish.

“There comes a time when you have to fish or cut bait.”

The delay also wreaked havoc on the construction budget, and revisions were made to reduce the costs of the project, deleting some of the refinements.

Revised plans for the center will be displayed at an Open House from 1-3 p.m. Monday at the Veterans’ Memorial Building on Legion Street.

“Bring your concerns,” Councilwoman Pearson-Schneider said. “We thought we had the support of the neighbors, but now some questions have arisen.”

Concerns have been expressed by resident Michael Hoag and others about the lack of operable windows in the project.

Hoag, who lives across the street from the property, says the structure “looks like a warehouse on three sides,” and that exercise rooms should have windows instead of skylights.

“One point that hasn’t come up is that LPA is an architectural firm noted for ‘green’ construction,” Quilter said. “They know how to do fresh air exchange.”

Some project opponents also complain about the destruction of the “neighborhood” of cottages that must be demolished or removed to make way for the center. Occupants have been asked to vacate the cottages by the first of the year, Pearson-Schneider said.

Quilter also downplayed concerns about putting the center at the base of the steep Third Street hill, which has worried some locals.

“The location is a ship that has sailed,” Quilter said.

He is more anxious that a further delay will appear to be a lack of support for the center and hamper fundraising.

“How can you go to donors and ask for money for a senior center that will be built ‘someday’?” Quilter said.

A $50,000 check for the construction fund presented Monday to the seniors by Realtor Bobbi Cox came at a most opportune time, Quilter said.

“It was a wonderful vote of confidence,” he said.

Laguna Beach Seniors began a fundraising campaign before the city bought the Third Street parcels almost five years ago. The city agreed to help funding by paying for the enclosed parking.

The group has raised about $2 million of the $2.5 million goal for their share of the construction of the center.

“We are really on track to break ground in April,” City Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider said Monday.

If the time table for the proposed project meets no further delays and the plan is approved, construction is scheduled to be completed in late 2008.