King Street Family Centre plans moving along
Plans by the Town of Shelburne to replace the aging King Street Family Centre are continuing, with another facilitated session for stakeholders and the public scheduled for Tuesday, July 24 at the Community Centre starting at 6:30 p.m.
The session, being hosted by Bird & Branch Consulting, will focus on design concepts for the proposed new facility. Engineering and architecture consultants will be present and based on the input they receive, will be working on preliminary designs to be further reviewed with stakeholders and the public in the fall.
The town began exploring replacing the King Street Family Centre earlier this year, holding initial stakeholder and public consultations in May and June, and collecting feedback through an online survey that it is still open and accessible from the town’s Facebook page and website.
“When we started looking at it for the long term it became clear that for accessibility and a number of other reasons it would make more sense to look at new construction,” said town CAO Dylan Heide. “We also thought it could be built while the current building is still in use to allow for a seamless transition.”
The location being considered for a new building is opposite the current building, still on the Graham Park property but on the Harriet Street side instead of the Hamond Street side so it’s above the park, said Heide. “We checked out the dimensions there and it seems like it will be suitable to what we’re talking about and convenient to still be adjacent to all the kids’ facilities in the park.”
The town held a series of public and stakeholder consultations on June 26, starting with a facilitated session in the morning with Bird & Branch Consulting, who then visited the King Street Family Centre in the afternoon to talk with people there and collect some information, and then were present at the Hillcrest graduation that evening.
“It was a whole day of opportunities for the public and users of the facility to provide feedback,” said Heide. “We’re really focused on the potential of what we could do with a new structure, some of the current benefits we don’t want to lose from the King Street centre and some of the opportunities where we could do better. It was a great start.”
The centre is home to many support services for women and children, including a daycare facility. Heide said the town wants to ensure those services and day care continue to be available in the town, and the tenants can have an affordable facility to operate from.
“The focus now is getting the King Street Family Centre to the concept stage, so we can seek external funding,” said Heide. “The project is in very early stages,” he said, encouraging residents and stakeholders to get involved.
The online survey is available at https://www.surveymonkey. com/r/CPD6592.