Los Gatos residents come together to plan multigenerational community center

Idea grew from desire for more senior services in town.

While senior services were the initial focus of plans for a new community center in Los Gatos, a multigenerational audience packed the Masonic Hall on June 20 to talk about creating a space for all ages.

Roughly 80 people gathered for a focus group-style workshop held by the Los Gatos Thrives Foundation, a chief architect of the plan to build the community center.

Attendees came together to discuss the features they’d like to see at the center, including spaces for teens and seniors, community gathering spaces and even a swimming pool. Foundation president Tom Picraux said the workshop was indicative of widespread support for the plan.

“The very first thing was, Does everyone want a community center? Is this important?’ And that seemed to be answered very strongly, that yes, there is a lot of interest,” he said.

Despite the fact that the majority of people who use community centers are older adults, Picraux said, there’s also a desire to make this a multigenerational project, from its design and planning to the center’s actual function.

“The interactions between all ages is much better than trying to just do something separate for older adults,” he added.

Picraux said the foundation plans to use the feedback collected at the workshop and through an online survey it conducted in a report for review by the town’s health and senior services commission, and potentially the town council. The group hopes to hold another workshop in the fall, while also working on plans to finance the community center and identify locations for it to be built, he said.

The plans for a new community center have been taking shape concurrently with the town’s efforts to make short term improvements to its existing adult recreation center, for which the town set aside $877,614 last September.

The foundation has been working with two interns from San Jose State University’s urban planning program on the community center project. The interns helped put together fact sheets for the workshop and drafted a report on national trends for multigenerational community centers, Picraux said.

“They were really interested in seeing how a community engagement, community project and planning and realization would work in a real situation,” he said, “and we’re certainly a real situation.”