Like the population it serves, the Enumclaw Senior Center is getting on in years — but unlike a fine wine, the structure is not getting better with age.

That’s why the Enumclaw City Council is looking at giving the century-old building a massive facelift, or simply building a new center.

Elected officials met with the city’s Public Works Director Ed Hawthorne during the Jan. 24 meeting; most of the hour-long discussion focused solely on the issues with the Senior Center.

According to Hawthorne, the city has reached the point where trying to fix various small issues, like simple ceiling repairs or replacing appliances, is impossible.

“Each one of these items typically result in staff going there, looking at the issue, and then finding that the budget appropriated for that particular project does not meet the needs, because it ends up opening up a can of worms in getting all kinds of other issues with the roof and the ceiling and building codes,” he said. “With the advice of our City Administrator Chris Searcy, we went out and did an RFQ for qualifications for an architect engineering firm to come in and look at the facility and give us an assessment of what the building needs, cost wise, so we can make all the necessary repairs.”

The firm, Cornerstone Architect, pretty much had nothing positive to say about the state of the building.

“The overall condition of the building… is really poor,” Hawthorne said. “Most of the building systems and elements are beyond repair.”

One major issue is the roof — past repairs have kept it serviceable, but any additional repairs would run afoul of city building codes, “so… it’s time to replace the entire roof,” Hawthorne said.

Additionally, none of the Senior Center’s walls are reinforced, “so if we have any seismic event, those bricks would most likely just come down,” he continued.

The kitchen is so antiquated, finding parts to keep various appliances like the dishwasher and ventilation hood in working condition is extremely difficult.

And two of the building’s four HVAC systems don’t work properly; there’s “extremely inefficient” heating and cooling, Hawthorne said. “We would recommend we just tear that out. There is no, ‘let’s replace that one unit.’ The ceiling has to come down, all the HVAC units need to come out, which then gets you into the ceiling, into the roof — the project just blows up.”

(Another note on the HVAC system — according to Senior Center Director Melissa Holt, the center is completely open, except for indoor dining. “With COVID being a respiratory illness, we definitely don’t want to have people in here without masks, and then blowing that air around,” she said. “But we don’t necessarily want to spend $200,000 on an HVAC ventilation system if we’re just going to tear it down.” The city will be providing the center with portable HVAC systems in the near future in order allow seniors to once again come in and grab a hot, sit-down lunch.)

There’s practically no storage (“There’s actually kind of an unknown rule where staff takes things home that are out of season because there’s no place to put it,” Hawthorne said), the fire detection system is nearly “nonexistent”, and there’s literally no way to switch off the building’s power without climbing the nearby power pole.

The only bit of good news was that “the water lines are good,” Hawthorne noted.

Another reason to upgrade the senior center, Director Holt said, is because Enumclaw’s senior population is growing. At the moment, the center serves more than 600 seniors that come for various services like memory classes, dancing courses, health services, and more.

“I think we are definitely going to rise in the number of seniors. There’s a new community going in up… by the golf course. There’s a new senior housing development going in there — they’re putting in 150 homes,” she said in a recent interview. “So we have an aging population. So we definitely need to meet the needs of our seniors and the growing population.”

WHAT’S THE COST?

So given the Senior Center’s poor condition, how much damage will fixing it do to the city’s wallet?

Simply repairing the building’s most immediate needs — replacing the roof and HVAC systems, upgrading the kitchen, and reinforcing the walls — over a period of time could cost up to $2.4 million, Hawthorne said. The cost is somewhat high due to the fact that there would be little project efficiency, if the council went down this road.

A likely more attractive option, gutting the building and making all recommended improvements at once, comes with an estimated price tag of $2.5 million.

And then there’s the nuclear option — tear the old building down and construct a new one on the same lot. This could cost between $2.9 and $3.4 million, Hawthorne said, adding in an email interview that this option would upgrade some parts of the Youth Center, but it wouldn’t be a total overhaul like the Senior Center.

The city council declined to have a major debate over or take action on the various options in front of them, given that two of their number were absent, but Council member Tom Sauvageau said the Community Service Committee is “pretty much unanimous [in] looking at replacing, rather than repairing.”

With that potential plan in mind, though, some officials seem interested in expanding the scope of the project; for example, Council member Beau Chevassus wondered if it would make sense to build a large enough community center to house not only the Senior Center and Youth Center, but even Arts Alive! and the Enumclaw Chamber of Commerce, both of which reside in their own aging buildings.

“I just don’t want future councils to be like, ‘Great, why didn’t the address Arts Alive! while they were at it?’” he said. “Just trying to kill three birds with one stone.”

Holt is also for the idea of building a new community center that would have the facilities to house several programs and operations.

Whatever option the council chooses, they’ll also have to decide how to fund the project.

Sauvageau mentioned that the King County Park Levy has its biannual grant cycle coming up in April, and again in 2024, giving the city the opportunity to compete for some county funds.

That may not be enough, however, and Mayor Jan Molinaro floated the idea of going out for a bond, which could be just for the Senior Center project, or encompass other large city projects as well.

Although the City Council looks ready to tackle this issue in the near future, Holt said she doesn’t want to get her hopes up quite yet.

“Jobyna had a building assessment done… years ago, and it basically told her the same thing — the building is in poor condition, and you need a new one, instead of just pumping money into this old one,” she said, referring to the center’s previous Director, Jobyna Nickum. “And look, here we are.”