11/12/07 - County considers senior offices move

South Main Street location eyed for housing the Area Agency on Aging

(As Published by Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

The county is considering constructing a building for its Area Agency on Aging on the two properties it was compelled to buy on south Main Street.

Some officials say the move could create space for the cramped Department of Mental Health and help alleviate a parking shortage at the County Office Building, where the Agency on Aging is now located.

Carol Deloff, director of the Agency on Aging, asked the Human Services Committee Thursday to consider her department as a possible tenant of the recently acquired properties at 157 and 159 Main St.

“With the older population in this community growing, I think it would be great if the center could grow, and we were able to offer more opportunities,” Deloff said. “I’m not saying it would work for sure, but I think it’s worth looking at.”

The Legislature voted in September to purchase the former Moose Lodge and Robbins Vending properties in response to a judge’s ruling that the county breached an original contract to purchase them in January.

The two properties, which including legal fees will cost $576,000, were originally part of an $894,000 deal aimed at placing a public health facility on a total of nine parcels of land along south Main, William and Randall streets. The project included the departments of Health and Mental Health.

Because it opted to purchase only the two commercial properties involved and is seeking to settle with the remaining property owners, the county must to decide whether to come up with a scaled-down project for the site or to sell two properties. The two properties are the former
Moose Lodge and the adjacent Robbins Tobacco Co. properties.

Deloff told the committee that the Agency on Aging’s current space is limiting, particularly for its meal delivery service.

The Agency on Aging delivers 500 meals per day to senior centers and to homes, but the process by which it gets the meals out of the County Office Building basement has long been arduous, requiring employees to lift large carts of meals at a number of points between the kitchen and the delivery vehicles, Deloff said.

“It’s an important service and our staff is great, they do what they have to do, but it’s been something we’ve been talking about fixing for years,” Deloff said.

The Agency on Aging occupies nearly 13,000 square feet in the County Office Building. It would cost $1.5 million to $2 million to construct a suitable 14,000-square-foot building on south Main Street, County Administrator Scott Schrader said this morning.

SEE DRYDEN TOWN HALL ARTICLE BELOW!!!! Sorry, it will be $3,000,000 PLUS the cost to purchase the land and prepare it, and by the time it is built, will be clser to $4,000,000.

Who is going to pay the difference? How does this impact taxpayers? Inquiring minds want to know.