Council Member Feliz questions on community space size and potential expansion
Feliz asks about the 15,000 sq ft community space and whether it could be larger. Washington says it takes up the remainder of the ground floor; expanding would lose units. He notes meetings with YMCA and other youth service organizations, and that 15,000 sq ft is smaller than a typical YMCA facility.
Okay.
Also, as we know, this is a community of a lot of needs.
Zip code 10457.
This is one of the poorest zip codes in the entire city.
I know earlier you mentioned there's a potential for a community space.
Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
And it's about 15,000 square feet.
Is there room to make it even bigger?
Or does that take up the entire ground floor?
So the 15,000 square feet, I think it's 15,200, takes up the remainder of the ground floor.
And then we start introducing apartments in there.
And so that would be different.
Magnus, I don't know if you want to speak more to it.
Yeah, I mean...
We have at-grade apartments, right?
If you're looking at the MAPES building in particular, right, there are, I think there's about nine apartments at the ground floor.
So whether those wanted to be converted to community facility, I think that's really up to, you know, FIPS and the sort of need for that.
But there is certainly capacity to enlarge that at the grade.
Yeah.
Well, we would likely lose units if we expanded it beyond what it is at this point.
You know, and Council Member, we heard from Santiago Youth Services.
YMCA was very important.
And they called me up and said, this is something that you're interested in.
So we, as Astrid said, we're meeting with the YMCA tomorrow.
15,000 square feet is smaller than their typical facility, but we'll have the conversation with them.
We've also looked at some other opportunities for youth services, Renaissance Youth we're reaching out to and some others, understanding you've identified.
divide the need for youth service and youth activity in the neighborhood.
Thank you, Chair.