Frequently Asked Questions

The new site is located at the Kelley Falls residential community, located on Kimball Street.  A dedicated space for a community center was recently incorporated into plans for the improvements being made at the Kelley Falls neighborhood/community and received support from the local community and the city to move forward, but at that time partners had not yet been identified to make that dream a reality.  This opportunity became a natural option for a new site for this project began anew. 

In short, we believe this will have a positive impact given the new services available to the families who live close by and are already patients/members of Amoskeag Health and the Greater Manchester Boys & Girls Club.  A substantial number of those who utilize the facility will be within walking distance and many others are families connected to serve families on the West Side.

There are several steps in the process from design to construction.  We are beginning the process of due diligence to align fundraising and donors, build programming and schematic design, survey the site, conduct soil investigations, engineering, permitting and design and construction team selection.   During this period, there will be several opportunities both through the city site permitting processes and through meetings with the neighborhood and community to provide design input.  We will announce those meetings and milestones as they approach.

We don’t anticipate the traffic impact to go much beyond what already exists, as many of the youth and families will be walking to the Center, taking the bus, or coming over after school.  We anticipate a mild increase in traffic, but the neighborhood has multiple points of access which will help us streamline traffic flow and minimize neighborhood impacts.  This project will include a traffic study, which will be a priority issue for this project. 

We are committed to having green space and outdoor activity space. Green space is very important.  The wooded buffer that currently sits between the site and neighboring homes will not be touched in this project.

The Center will focus on providing services for youth and families on the West Side.  Boys & Girls Club and Amoskeag Health will be providing services for youth and families through the Center here on the West Side, just as they do now on the East Side.  These two organizations have been providing services in partnership for years.  Additional services to address food insecurity, and additional support for children and families will be integrated into the community center. All services will be focused on youth and families, such as affordable, walkable childcare, after school care, safe spaces for teens, community meeting space and access to technology.

The conversation about this community center has been ongoing for several months.  For this new location, there was an effort to go directly to residents who live nearby to offer information and a way to contact project leaders with questions or concerns.  We will update our website, share information on social media and continue outreach to the neighborhood.  We also intend to hold community meetings to discuss the project and meet with local neighbors. 

We had an initial meeting of the Center’s steering team in November 2021 and have been searching for land since then.  We have looked at numerous properties.  The parcel at Parkside came to our attention in late Spring (April 20, 2022). That option became unworkable given the limits of available space and impacts on abutters.  The new location was discovered in the months that followed, which began a conversation with HUD and then MHRA, which owns the land and is now willing to lease it to the Community Center leadership.  

We will be raising funds from individual donors, local and national foundations, companies, and pursuing federal funding.

The Center is a nonprofit and will pay for all construction and operating expenses through raised funds.  Taxpayers and/or residents of the city will not be paying for any aspects of the Center.

There are already several interested funders for the project.  While it may take some time to secure all necessary dollars, we are confident this project will move forward to serve West Side children and their families in some meaningful capacity through the Greater Manchester Boys & Girls Club and through Amoskeag Health.

That has not yet been determined.  Site surveys and fundraising/financing will help determine the final size.  It will be roughly 20,000 sq feet, well within the size limitations for this land site.

A group of volunteers, including non-profit staff members and community members was gathered and met over a few months (January 2022 through April 2022) to review the available data from community needs assessments completed in the last 3 years, such as the 2019 Manchester Needs Assessment put together by the Manchester Health Department, and other publicly available data from sources like the Census. We also pulled in a list of currently available services from organizations like 2-1-1 to assess what was currently being offered within 03102 census tracts. We then analyzed common themes that came out in the data, and looked at those by census tract.  We also looked at the bus routes, and where some of those services were located. Using this information, we did a survey of residents to confirm that the areas of need we had identified from the data made sense from their perspective, and to prioritize the areas they felt were most important in the area of services for children and families.

The number of parking spots will be based on the estimates from the architect and the requirements of any local ordinances. Those amounts cannot be determined until the final number of occupants and size of the building is determined.

Fortunately, the public’s awareness of this effort is high, especially on the West Side.  For the new site at Kelley Falls, we have begun an informational effort to keep local residents and neighbors informed and updated. It remains our intention to work closely with the local community and address any issues, now and in the future.  We will have many avenues for public and neighborhood input as we move forward with the planning, including information about programs, building and site design, and opportunities for input in the planning and zoning process.

Contact:  [email protected]