Burlington’s Steamboat Senior Center won’t be moving to the Burlington Depot after all.
Despite council plans to move the senior gathering spot to the vacant restaurant located inside the depot, senior center members voted 22-0 to keep the organization where it is.
Mayor Jon Billups reported the results of the vote to the council Monday night (Jan. 27) during the city council work session.
None of the council members expressed interest in moving ahead after Billups’ brief, conclusive report, indicating they will vote down the measure officially next Monday (Feb. 2). Votes cannot be taken during a work session.
The move would have resulted in $35,000 of renovation work in the depot’s vacant restaurant space to convert it into a senior center. The council cited better parking and a sturdier building as reasons for the move, noting it would cheaper than the $78,000 in roof repairs required at the center’s current location.
The proposed move put a divide between the council and Friends of The Depot nonprofit group, which disbanded in protest. The group is using the remainder of its funds to install new awnings on the depot.
Since the $35,000 won’t be used for the depot, it likely will be used to help fund repairs for the Steamboat Senior Center’s leaky roof, which is what the money was originally budgeted for.
The city’s final budget meeting is Thursday.
For a brief history of the proposed move check out the full story at www.burlingtonbeacon.com.
A Brief History of The Proposed Move
The Burlington City Council voted 3-to-1 on Dec. 2, 2019 (council member Annie Wilson was not present) on a resolution that would move the Steamboat Senior Center from its current location at 501 Jefferson St. to the former Grier’s diner space at the Burlington Depot.
The recently renovated diner space was never filled, despite a $150,000 white boxing process by the city to allow for a restaurant.
Councilwoman Lynda Graham-Murray’s husband, Matt Murray, announced he was putting a restaurant in the space before the white boxing began. He later pulled out of the deal, but the city finished the process in hopes of attracting another restaurant.
The lone dissenting vote on Dec. 2 came from Councilman Matt Rinker, who was not comfortable changing the function of a public space that was initially designed to be a restaurant. He said moving the senior center to the depot would only be a short term solution, and regretted the council not spending time looking at more options.
“I think we could have come up with something better,” he said.
Former Councilman Shane McCampbell (mayor at the time) disagreed with Rinker’s point about the depot’s purpose, saying the idea was always to get something in the building to help the revitalization process. For a while, McCampbell said, it looked like the answer was going to be a restaurant.
The resolution the council plans to vote down Monday includes concrete work to raise the lower floor of the depot to the same height as the rest of the room, as well as new counter walls, a new paint job, a new sink, and various other improvements.
“You guy aren’t going to want to leave,” McCampbell said to members of senior center during the December council meeting.