The Boys & Girls Club of Mount Vernon is seeking approvals from the city for a plan to construct a new headquarters building at 50 East First St. in the city. The plan involves merging for tax lots into a single lot. The two-story building would be constructed on the 38,955-square-feet property. There would be 24 parking spaces provided.
It’s estimated that the project would cost from $28 million to $30 million. The club is planning to raise $40 million to cover the cost and also establish reserve funding to help cover the club’s estimated $2.6 million to $3 million annual budget.
This application will need to receive approvals from Mount Vernon’s Planning Board, Architectural Review Board and City Council. The Planning Board moved to draft a resolution of approval for future consideration and at the same time declared its intent to serve as Lead Agency for the environmental review of the project. The property is located in the city’s Downtown Transit Oriented Arts District.
Attorney Steven Wrabel of the White Plains-based law firm McCullough, Goldberger & Staudt LLP said that the club currently is headquartered at 350 S. 6th Ave. in Mount Vernon and has been there for 70 years.
“Some of their facilities are a bit outdated and they have grown in those 70 years and those facilities are also a little small for their needs,” Wrabel said.
Mel Campos, CEO of the club for the past 14 years, noted that the Boys & Girls Club of Mount Vernon has been serving youth in the city for 114 years. He said that the existing site has served the club well but that it is now time to move.
“We believe that at the new site we will be able to draw children city-wide,” Campos said. “In our current building for our after school program we have to divided it into two sections: between 3 p.m. and 6:30 we serve the 6- to 13-year-olds in our after school program and between 6:30 and 8:30 Monday through Friday we serve our teen population. Because of the size of our building and the requirements that teens have a dedicated space the teens and the younger kids cannot be in the (current) building at the same time. At the new building we have dedicated space for the teens and will be able to serve the children from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.”
Campos explained that at the current building they have a small kitchen which prepares 22,000 meals a year for the youngsters along with 22,000 snacks. The new building would have a full-size commercial teaching kitchen capable of preparing more than 30,000 meals a year as well as providing training for youngsters in the culinary arts.
“Also in the commercial kitchen we will be able to provide space for community groups to have positive activities while being able to provide food and refreshments,” Campos said. “Another aspect of our new clubhouse will be ‘makerlab’ where we will be doing workforce development for our young people, preparing them to enter the world of work, allowing them to gain the skills necessary not only to get a job but to keep a job and begin to get the basic skills to have a trade.”
Architect Rob Pfaffmann said a full-size gymnasium will dominate the footprint of the approximately 30,000-square-feet building. He said there will be a meeting area that will double as classrooms, a media center, cafe and game space along with planters for gardening and containers for composting. He said that the building will feature extensive use of glass to provide transparency and allow natural light to enter. He said that existing mature trees along sidewalks would be retained and new trees planted.
Campos said that in its programming the club focuses on education, healthy lifestyles and the arts and community service.
“They get education, they get recreation and they get social development,” Campos said. “For our teens, we focus on high school graduation and having a plan after college. We tell parents that when the child goes home they will be tired; hopefully they’ll go right to bed and come back tomorrow.”
