Yellow Springs Senior Center leaders are eyeing the former lumber yard at 108 Cliff St. as a potential site for the organization’s long-planned new building — a possible shift away from a Livermore Street parcel the Senior Center purchased two years ago.

As the News reported in December 2023, Yellow Springs Senior Citizens, Inc. bought a $300,000, half-acre lot from Antioch College at the corner of Livermore and East North College streets, with the aim of building a new facility to replace the current split-level center at 227 Xenia Ave.

The Cliff Street property — a 1940 industrial building that formerly housed a series of lumber companies — was purchased in 2021 by Massies Creek Ventures, whose owners, at the time, aimed to transform the building into a public market and eatery. Massies Creek Ventures cleared and renovated parts of the site, removed asbestos siding and commissioned architectural renderings; however, the property returned to the market in mid-2024 with an asking price of $1.27 million.

The possible change in course for the Senior Center was shared with the center’s 710 members in a late-December newsletter. Executive Director Caroline Mullin wrote in the newsletter that the Senior Center’s board of trustees had “been working to pivot and consider an alternative location for [the] new facility” as part of a “thoughtful process including bringing many experts into the dialogue.”

In speaking with the News this month, Mullin said the Cliff Street property came into focus during conversations about what residents want the new facility to be — and where they want it to be.

“The only detraction we were getting as feedback from people [on the Livermore site] was that we’d be leaving downtown,” Mullin said.

A member of the feasibility group for the planned new building pointed toward Cliff Street as an option, Mullin said, and Senior Center leadership moved quickly to give the site an initial assessment.

“Within 10 days, we had a crew of 12 people walk through [the Cliff Street] property, including our architect,” she said. “And we’re comfortable that it would fit our needs, and the perception is that it would still be downtown.”

She emphasized, however, that the Cliff Street option is still only a possibility.

“It’s still up in the air, and there’s no contract on it,” Mullin said.

Thus far, the Senior Center has worked with Dayton-based LWC Architecture to complete a feasibility study, assessing the nonprofit’s ability to raise capital for the project, and a space usage study, identifying the ideal space needed for current and future operations. According to Mullin, the Cliff Street property’s 11,000 square feet — about three times the current building’s 3,7000 square feet — would fit the bill.

“We’re pretty clear that we need 11,000 square feet,” Mullin said.

The current Senior Center building on Xenia Avenue, purchased to house the center in 1978, presents a number of logistical challenges daily, Mullin said. The Senior Center hosts a wealth of programming within its doors each week, including a number of classes, meeting and discussion groups, weekly meals, public performances and the monthly “Village Voices” speaker series. The majority of scheduled programs are held within two classrooms, Mullin said, which often means a quick turnaround between events, as well as a limit on how many programs can be held throughout the day.

And as a result of the building’s layout, she said, staff, volunteers and members sometimes must pass through other in-use rooms in order to get to the kitchen or storage, and parking close to the Senior Center remains a challenge for those attending programming, even with a few dedicated accessible spots nearby. Mullin also added that accessibility within the building is not ideal: Because the building is split-level, those who use mobility devices must use an outdoor ramp to move between the levels of the building

“It’s not unusual to have 80 people in and out of our building in a day,” Mullin said, adding that the center has had to turn down program ideas because there isn’t room to host them.

“And we also want to have more of a lounge area,” she said. “We don’t have enough space for people to just socialize.”

In addition to location and size, one of the Cliff Street site’s potential advantages is that it may allow the Senior Center to build in phases — a concept Mullin said emerged in the feasibility study as a way to keep moving even if the full project cost can’t be raised all at once; a firm cost for the project hasn’t yet been tallied, but Mullin said an early estimate is around $7 million.

“And the space on Cliff street would allow us to maybe just do the east end of the building, and then remodel the rest later,” she said. “If it’s a phased project, we would have the ability to maybe get started with $3 million, and then over time, get the momentum to finish.”

Mullin said the Senior Center has raised over $250,000 for the building project during its “silent phase” of fundraising, and expects assets from the sale of the current building to contribute to about 15% of the overall cost of the new building project.

Mullin added that both potential sites for the new Senior Center — the Cliff Street property and the Livermore Street land near Antioch College the nonprofit already owns — offer potential advantages for the center’s future: The Cliff Street site, positioned along the bike path, could open up new possibilities for how the center feels and functions, including outdoor space that invites passersby in. Livermore Street, for its part, would offer the freedom to design without the existing constraints of an older structure.

“We’ll be fine in either situation,” Mullin said, adding that a decision on which site to pursue will likely be made within the next two months.

“We don’t want to take so long to make a decision that everything stalls.”

No matter which location the board ultimately chooses, Mullin said the Senior Center’s mission remains the same, as does the invitation to the broader community to be part of it. Membership and programming are open to people of all ages, and the membership fee is $25 per year.

In the meantime, the Senior Center just finished up its annual appeal, raising more than $95,000 for operations after setting a $91,000 goal. Mullin noted that the goal for the appeal was originally set at $90,000 in honor of local resident Donna Denman, following the publication of “Living healthy at 90 and beyond,” a Scientific American profile on Denman penned by Neenah Ellis and featuring photos by Dennie Eagleson.

“And when I told [Donna] that our goal was $90,000, she said, ‘Well, I’m 91 now, so let’s make it $91,000,’” Mullin said. “So we want to thank the community, in as many ways as possible, for helping us exceed our goal.”