Advisory group favors fifth MAPS 3 senior health center

An advisory panel voted Wednesday to recommend the city build a fifth MAPS 3 senior health and wellness center.

In the run-up to the December 2009 MAPS 3 election, voters were promised “four to five state-of-the-art health and wellness aquatic centers ... to encourage healthy lifestyles and serve as a gathering place for active seniors.”

Senior centers were allocated $53 million from the original$777 million MAPS 3 budget.

Once it became clear they would average about $13 million, plans were scaled back to four.

However, there will be millions in excess collections and interest when the MAPS 3 sales tax expires on Dec. 31, 2017.

Latest estimates released Tuesday project $42 million in excess collections and interest, plus $17 million originally set aside as contingency funds.

About $20 million of the total has been committed, leaving $39 million.

The MAPS 3 senior health and wellness centers subcommittee recommended paying for the fifth center out of excess revenue.

Maps reviewed by the subcommittee have shown where the greatest concentrations of residents age 50 and older were in 2010 and are expected to be in 2020 and 2030.

The maps show the older population gathered along a north-south axis through the city’s core and expanding to the west.

Construction has begun on the first two senior health and wellness centers, one in northwest Oklahoma City and the second in Capitol Hill.

At NW 115 Street and Rockwell Avenue, the first is expected to open to the public by February.

Construction costs about $10 million each. Land acquisition and design services add $2 million to $3 million to the cost.

The city council recently agreed to spend $786,000 from excess collections to add a pedestrian bridge to the MAPS 3 whitewater park in the Boathouse District.

Excess collections also have been tapped for

BY WILLIAM CRUM sidewalks ($9 million), the convention center ($6 million), streetcar ($3 million), and the first two senior centers ($1.35 million).