Community Center Building Committee begins its work

Now that the school project is nearing completion, the town is turning its attention to another much-needed facility: a community center. A new Community Center Building Committee has been established and is getting right to work with its first meeting on June 1.

It’s not always easy to find volunteers for town government, but in this case, the Select Board had many enthusiastic applicants — 11 people for the four at-large slots. The board interviewed candidates at its May 23 meeting and voted to include Sarah Chester, Timothy Christenfeld, Alison Taunton-Rigby, and Krystal Wood. The other applicants for those slots were Owen Beenhouwer, Doug Crosby, Steve Gladstone, Dave Levington, Andrew Sheff, Andrew Singer, and Peter von Mertens.

Also on the committee are five representatives of town boards: Jonathan Dwyer (Select Board), Margit Griffith (Parks & Recreation Committee), Adam Hogue (School Committee), Ellen Meyer-Shorb (Finance Committee) and Dilla Tingley (Council on Aging and Human Services. Rounding out the roster are five nonvoting ex officio members: COA&HS Director Abigail Butt, Parks and Recreation Director Jessica Downing, Town Administrator, Timothy Higgins, Assistant Town Daniel Pereira, and Facilities Director Brandon Kelly.

Residents voted almost unanimously in March to move ahead with the community center, which is now estimated to cost $23 million to $25.4 million in 2025 dollars. Parks and Rec and the COAHS are in dire need of newer and better designed space. That would result in an annual property tax increase of about $600 on a home assessed at $1.13 million (the median in Lincoln) whose owner now pays $16,866 per year. Construction could start in June 2025 and finish 18 months later.

In 2018, the community center planning committee and its architect came up with two possible design directions (slides 5–10 in the 2021 State of the Town presentation). The new CCBC will review those two design concepts with an eye for “potential cost savings that may be achieved through re-evaluating the project scope or by other means,” according to the committee’s charge. The review will also consider how Covid-19 precautions might affect programs, interior space layout, outdoor amenities, and the role that the new and renovated school spaces might play.

The timeline proposed last fall calls for a Special Town Meeting in November 2022 to appropriate funds for architect and construction managers, and another Special Town Meeting a year later to vote on a preferred design option and budget.

Editor’s note: previous Lincoln Squirrel stories on the community center can be found on the home page of the Squirrel website. Scroll down to the red “Categories” heading in the left-hand column and click on the “community center” dropdown.