Senior center building: story with correction Senior center building: story with correction (June 10, 2005)
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, the headline and lead paragraph of this story on the new senior center -- published below as it ran in the June 10 edition -- incorrectly stated that the city council had picked a contractor for the building. The council was not scheduled to vote on the staff's recommendation to award the contract to McCrary Construction of Belmont until its June 17 meeting. The Voice regrets the error.

Contractor picked for senior center building

By Jon Wiener

Plans for a new senior center on the other end of Rengstorff Park -- opposite the hotly contested child care center -- continued to move forward Tuesday night, when the council voted to award a contract for the building's construction.

City staff had recommended the council choose the lowest of three bidders, Belmont-based McCrary Construction Company, whose proposal came in at just under $10.5 million. That price included several "bid alternates" -- like a higher-quality roof and an anti-graffiti coating on the building's exterior -- and is still less than the $10.6 million budget the city allocated for the project.

"We were very pleased because the construction market is very unpredictable right now," said public works director Cathy Lazarus.

Crews will begin work on the building in July, making it one of three major city projects -- the Graham Reservoir and the downtown parking garage are the others -- that will be under construction this summer. Lazarus said overseers plan to complete the project by December 2006, with a move-in date set for the following month.

In late 2001, concerns arose about the original senior center's ability to withstand an earthquake, eventually forcing the closure of the 40-year-old building. The city had picked out a location for a temporary center near a group of Superfund sites on Middlefield Road, but changed its mind after an outcry over the potential environmental health effects. Instead, the city moved the senior center's operations 20 feet away, into a group of portables located over what will become part of the senior garden.

McCrary Construction also built the Cupertino senior center and is working on a similar project in Dublin.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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