Denton City Council gave staff the green light to plan the relocation of the Denton Senior Center and the South Branch Library to significantly larger sites during the Oct. 27 work session.
What’s happening?
Under the preliminary work session agreement, staff will evaluate building the new senior center and new library on city-owned properties with a $250,000 planning allocation.
The proposed site for the new Denton Senior Center is on a 16.2-acre plot near Mack Park, while the library would be on a 14.4-acre plot on Ryan Road.
The funding for both projects come from the voter-approved 2023 bond and totals $96.5 million.
Director of Capital Projects Seth Garcia presented to the council four options for utilizing the bond funds for improvements to the senior center and the library.
The options considered were constructing new separate facilities, building a joint facility for the senior center and library on Ryan Road, expanding and renovating existing facilities on their respective sites and acquiring and converting existing commercial buildings that have yet to be identified.
A closer look
Under the 2023 bond package, the senior center was allocated $47 million under Proposition F and $49.5 million was budgeted under Proposition G for the South Branch Library, per city documents. The planning allocation is separate from the bond.
The council chose to construct new, separate facilities so staff can tailor the buildings and outdoor spaces. The proposed tracts of land are already owned by the city and provide ample space for expansions and parking lots, according to city documents.
Additionally, construction would not interfere with the current facilities staying open in this scenario, Garcia said.
The Denton Senior Center
The current Denton Senior Center was built in 1977 and is located downtown near Quakertown Park on a 2.5-acre property. It sits inside a 100-year FEMA floodplain, which means the property could be exposed to 3 feet of flooding during major storms, Garcia said.
Because of the site’s designation, remodeling the building would legally require extensive and expensive flood-proofing of the structure to bring it up to city codes, effectively closing the senior center for 12-15 months, Garcia said.
Garcia also noted a lack of reliable underground utility records for the current senior center.
The Denton Senior Center shares onsite parking space with the Civic Center Pool, so relocating and expanding the former would alleviate the current competition for parking between users of those facilities, Council Member Suzi Rumohr said. The relocation would also allow the city to renovate and expand the pool or add to its parking lot in the future.
"It just feels like there's a lot more space to do what we really want to do [with the senior center] on the Mack Park site while it still being kind of centrally located and having bus access,” Rumohr said.
Moving the Denton Senior Center to Mack Park puts it closer to American Legion Hall, the other city-run senior center, which already underwent a significant renovation and reopened in December 2021, according to the city's website.
“There wouldn't be any benefit [as far as] providing service to different parts of town,” Garcia said.
South Branch Library
The current South Branch Library was built in 1994 and sits on a 2.8-acre parcel of land on Teasley Lane. A 2009 expansion nearly doubled the building to 21,000 square feet, Garcia said.
Proposition G of the 2023 bond package includes expanding the library to about 40,000 square feet. The current parcel of land cannot support that size and still fit the required space for outdoor programming and parking, Garcia said.
Like the Denton Senior Center, the current library has inadequate underground utility records, so an expansion would require extensive renovations and close the library for at least a year, according to Garcia.
Moving the library south would “capture more of the members within the city that currently use the library,” Garcia said.
Council Member Joe Holland expressed concern about moving the library south of its current location.
“I like [the current] building … but I think the better option is two separate sites, if it comes to that,” Holland said.
Next steps
City staff will use the $250,000 master planning allocation to hire an architect and begin preliminary site evaluations, according to city documents.
The Capital Projects department will conduct traffic impact studies, utility assessments and zoning reviews for both properties while coordinating with department leaders to establish facility layouts within the voter-approved bond budgets.
After public outreach and stakeholder sessions, staff will calculate detailed cost estimates and return to City Council during the 2027-28 fiscal year’s budget process to request full architectural design funding.
