City Manager Letter summarizing the 10-year process to fund and site a West Cambridge youth center – October 17, 2005

To the Honorable, the City Council:

In response to Awaiting Report Item Number 05-186, regarding a report on summarizing the 10-year process to fund and site a West Cambridge youth center.

In 1994, residents of the West Cambridge neighborhood met informally with the City Manager’s Office to discuss the possibility of building a West Cambridge Youth Center.

In 1995, members of the Haggerty Community School Neighborhood Council and the Tobin Community School Neighborhood Council began to hold a series of public meetings to discuss the need for a new West Cambridge Youth Center. The existing location of the Youth Center was within the Corcoran Park Family Housing Development, in a cramped 2-bedroom apartment donated by the Cambridge Housing Authority.

During the course of design for the renovation of the Haggerty School in 1993, its principal committed to creating a community use wing in the new building, which could be used by the West Cambridge Youth and Community Center while efforts to site and build a new Youth Center were undertaken.

In December 1996 a West Cambridge Youth Center site selection sub-committee created an initial grid report on potential sites in West Cambridge for locating a Youth Center. This initial overview identified six sites worth analyzing for future consideration. They included the Armory, Tobin Field, Collins Library, BBN Athletic Fields, Glacken Field, and Aberdeen/Huron Avenue. The report did not include any in-depth analysis but noted some potential considerations re: population, feasibility, price, access and transportation. The report reached no conclusions.

The Tobin and Haggerty Community School Neighborhood Councils met over a number of months in 1995-1996 to discuss programming for children in West Cambridge. In 1996 members of both neighborhood councils were represented when the West Cambridge Youth Center Steering Committee ("WCYCSC") was formed. Youth Center members worked over a number of months with the WCYCSC to create a Needs Assessment document. In February 1997 the WCYCSC presented the Needs Assessment document to the City, identifying the need for a larger, better equipped space than the 2-bedroom apartment the Youth Center was then operating from. Their report identified a variety of educational and recreational needs of the population they served and the limitations on their ability to provide services to address those needs for neighborhood youth. They also identified limitations on storage, office space, security, open space and restrictions on their ability to schedule programs within the limited space, as well as maintenance issues and the inconvenient, non-central location.

Following the Needs Assessment, the WCYCSC held a community meeting at the Tobin School to present the Needs Assessment and to obtain community feedback. In June 1997 the WCYCSC asked the City to identify the sites under consideration as potential locations for a West Cambridge Youth Center. At that time the City was considering sites at Glacken Field, the Armory parking lot and the Tobin School Field site.

In January 1998 Carlone & Associates provided the City with a siting analysis and assessment for various Public Building purposes, including a West Cambridge Youth Center. Their report identified and considered the Haggerty School and Strawberry Hill Neighborhood, Glacken Field, the Tobin School Field at Concord Avenue, and the Armory parking lot facing Tobin Field. Their report recommended pursuit of the Armory and Tobin Field sites. Further analysis by Carlone & Associates, in a March 1998 report, rejected the Haggerty School site as too small for the programmatic needs of a Youth Center. The March 1998 report, in considering the Glacken Field site, identified watershed impact concerns, which would involve approvals from the Water Board, DEP, City Council and state legislature, all potential obstacles to development. The report’s findings with regard to the Tobin Field site identified programmatic needs for building on the teachers’ parking lot for the Tobin School and identified that the site was a former clay pit that might involve environmental remediation. The report’s findings with regard to the Armory site identified potential soil remediation issues, as well as zoning obstacles. Despite these identified issues, the report recommended further consideration and analysis of the three sites.

In the spring and summer of 1998 the City, through the engineering firm Camp Dresser & McKee ("CDM"), conducted an environmental assessment of the soil and groundwater conditions below the surface of the Tobin School playfields and a site remediation program was undertaken thereafter.

In June 1998 the City also considered the feasibility of purchasing two adjacent private lots located on Fresh Pond Parkway. This property was deemed unsuitable due to its configuration and to pedestrian safety concerns raised by its proximity to heavily trafficked Fresh Pond Parkway.

In May 2000, after two years of City effort to obtain land owned by the Military Division of the Commonwealth on Concord Avenue, the Adjutant General of the Armory rejected the City’s request that certain land adjacent to the Armory be declared surplus.

At the same time that the Armory and Tobin Field sites were being pursued as options, the City contracted with Cambridge Seven Architects ("C7A") for a feasibility study regarding the possible use of land located at Glacken Field, which was then in use as tennis courts, as well as a nearby site adjacent to Huron Towers. The C7A feasibility study proposed four alternative site plan layouts for the Glacken Field site, identified environmental issues posed by the potential use of the Glacken Field site and potential jurisdictional conflicts with the Fresh Pond Master Plan. The feasibility study determined that the alternate site, behind Huron Towers, was inappropriate due to significant pedestrian and vehicle access limitations and drainage and stormwater problems posed by the steeply sloping nature of the site. In conjunction with the C7A feasibility study, an environmental feasibility evaluation of the Glacken Field site was conducted by CDM in 2001 regarding environmental impacts of constructing a facility at this site.

As part of the City’s evaluation of the Glacken Field site, the City contemplated building a structure on the tennis courts and part of the Golf Course parking lot. This plan would have required construction of a costly underground parking facility to make up for parking spots lost to the Youth Center building footprint. The cost of this concept was deemed unreasonably high.

In conjunction with the development of the C7A and CDM studies, the City was in communication with the Water Board regarding its position on the possibility of developing the Glacken Field site. In October 2000 the Water Board reiterated its long-stated policy, passed unanimously by the Water Board, that there be no further change in the use of City –owned water supply lands, including the Glacken Field site.

The City also considered moving the Golf Course clubhouse in conjunction with the possibility of constructing a community center at the Glacken Field site. In January 2001, the Cambridge Historical Commission considered the possibility and informed the City Manager that, given the Clubhouse’s age, historic review would be triggered under the City’s demolition delay ordinance and that such review might lead to historic landmark status. The Clubhouse has since received landmark status.

In fiscal year 1998, the City’s capital budget noted that planning for a West Cambridge Youth Center was in its initial stages, but that it was anticipated that $7,750,000, would be needed to funds all phases of the project, including feasibility studies, land acquisition, design and construction. In the FY99 capital budget, $50,000 was set aside for identifying and determining potential sites for the facility. In FY00 the capital budget noted that $1,000,000 in bond proceeds would provide funds for the land acquisition phase of the multi-year project to purchase a site and build a youth center thereon.

In 2002, the City approached the Mt. Auburn VFW about the possibility of selling their site and building, located at 688 Huron Avenue, to the City for a below-market price in exchange for renovations to a portion of the building, which the VFW would retain for their use under a leaseback arrangement. At that time, the VFW was not interested in selling their property. In 2004, the VFW approached the City about the earlier proposition. The City Council was very interested in this opportunity and voted unanimously on May 9, 2005 to appropriate $6,000,000 "for the purpose of acquiring a parcel or parcels of land and buildings thereon as a site for the West Cambridge Youth and Community Center and for remodeling, reconstructing and repairing the buildings for such use." Negotiations with the VFW are in progress. A designer selection process took place in August 2005, and the designer selection committee, which included members of the VFW, selected C7A as the architect.

Very truly yours,
Robert W. Healy
City Manager