The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

My Turn: Why the community center must be at Hartwell

By Krystal Wood

While the motion approved at the November 2022 Special Town Meeting recognized that the community center would be located at the Hartwell complex, in the recent CCBC survey responses and during the open microphone community center meeting on April 4, some residents expressed their continuing interest in locating the center at Lincoln Station, or in the consideration of other locations around town. There are a number of issues that are worth more explanation.

The Lincoln Station location
  1. The Parks and Recreation (PRD) programs are located at existing space at the Hartwell complex and will continue to be located at Hartwell so Lincoln children can easily walk to their after-school activities.
  2. There is no viable site at Lincoln Station for a Council on Aging & Human Services (COA&HS) center. No private land owner has talked to the town about siting a center on their property. The town owns three properties: the DPW site, the paved commuter parking lot, and the unpaved commuter parking lot. Consultants in a previous study estimated the cost for moving the DPW to the only viable site (transfer station) to be about $25 million. The unpaved commuter lot is too small. The paved commuter lot provides public parking for the commuter rail, and presents challenges complying with MBTA requirements for appropriate parking capacity at train stations. Limited parking correlates with reduced train service. The MBTA and its constituency can be expected to protest a reduction in public parking at any MBTA station. Building on the paved lot would also eliminate the possibility of using the lot for potential commercial activity or a potential housing development. (Additional housing is the top priority for the revitalization efforts.)
  3. Any construction for a center at Lincoln Station will require public funding for site preparation, parking, and a building in addition to public funding for solving PRD’s facility and office space needs in Hartwell complex.
  4. Locating the COA&HS center at Lincoln Station would require duplication of facilities with those used by PRD in the Hartwell complex, adding significantly to the construction costs and also the maintenance and management costs. 
  5. Trying to use other locations at Lincoln Station — above the bank, above Donelan’s, other Rural Land Foundation property etc., if available — would also reduce the options for future housing.
Important considerations for locating the community center at Hartwell:
  1. The PRD and COA&HS can co-locate as they need similar types of facilities and, most importantly, can share the same spaces. Both provide fitness activities, but largely at different times of the day. PRD and COA&HS provide arts-and-crafts activities that can again be located in the same space at different days and times, etc. Use of the same facilities will provide significant reduction in construction costs and provide operational efficiency gains.
  2. There are synergies between the school, PRD, and COA&HS programs, and the Hartwell location will provide readily accessible opportunities for intergenerational activities unhindered by distance and transportation logistics of separate locations.
  3. The campus has been studied extensively to ensure that a community center could be located on Ballfield Road, and it was determined that with proper design, there is sufficient space for parking and circulation.
  4. The campus location is aesthetically more pleasing than the commuter lot at Lincoln Station.
PRD and COA&HS programming beyond the Hartwell complex

Currently, PRD and COA&HS programs occur at many locations around town other than the Hartwell complex, and both organizations will continue to use these locations. For a full listing, please see the Decentralized Programming Matrix on the CCBC web site.

  1. The PRD runs programs at the Lincoln School’s Reed and Smith gyms, Donaldson Auditorium, and Learning Commons, and at Bemis Hall, Pierce House, the library, the First Parish Church, and Codman Community Farms, amongst other locations, as well as at town athletic facilities including Codman Pool, the sport and tennis courts, playgrounds, athletic fields, and parks.
  2. The COA&HS has programs at the First Parish Church, Lincoln Woods, the Hartwell complex, the Pierce House tent, The Commons in Lincoln, the Ryan Estates, Minuteman Technical High School, and on Lincoln’s trail network.

There is a recognized need to revitalize Lincoln Station, but at the 2022 November Special Town Meeting, the democratic process resulted in a clear consensus and support for the amended motion for developing options for design choices and budgets for the community center building at the Hartwell complex.

Thank you for taking the time to read through these clarifications, and for engaging in the process to discern how we address Lincoln’s challenges together.

Krystal Wood is a member of the Community Center Building Committee‘s Communications Subcommittee.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.