Senior Wellness Centers

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Advisory panel debates closing budget gap for constructing first MAPS 3 senior center | Oklahoman.com

Advisory panel members wrestled Wednesday with how to close a $599,333 gap in the construction budget for the first of four MAPS 3 senior wellness centers.

[Spartan]

Oh good they just rolled over and gave a NW 122nd Street church as big a chunk of MAPS3 as they want. Hopefully that was the last pass for the offering basket.

[Pete]

Moving along just south of Capitol Hill HS:

[OKCisOK4me]

The one on N. Rockwell is coming along nicely.

[Pete]

MAPS 3 Senior Health & Wellness Center ribbon cutting and open house is Tuesday

Join Mayor Mick Cornett and other civic leaders Tuesday for a ribbon cutting and open house at the first MAPS 3 Senior Health & Wellness Center.

The ribbon cutting is set for 2 p.m. at the center, 11501 N Rockwell Ave., with the open house following from 2:30 to 6 p.m.

“With the opening of this senior center, Oklahoma City is becoming a better and more livable community,” Mayor Cornett said. “There’s no question this MAPS 3 project will help improve the health and wellness of the people over 50 who live in and around the area. This is a great investment in our residents.”

Healthy Living and Fitness will operate the center, which is scheduled to open March 20 to members.

Anyone age 50 and up can join, not just Oklahoma City residents. Individual memberships are $30 per month, and two people from the same household can share a membership for $50 per month. Visit healthylivingokc.com for membership details and other information.

Fitness, social amenities and more
The 40,272-square-foot building has a heated indoor saltwater fitness pool, a full-sized gymnasium, fully equipped exercise room, an aerobics room, classroom space, a demonstration kitchen, an outdoor bocce ball court, art studio, café, lounge, health screening room and more.

Every aspect of the senior center is designed to be easily accessible for older adults. A gently sloping ramp provides easy access to the pool and a curb-less parking lot are examples of design elements with seniors in mind.

W.L. McNatt is the construction contractor, and GSB is the architect. ADG is the City of Oklahoma City’s consultant for the MAPS 3 program.

Other centers on the way
The MAPS 3 Senior Health & Wellness Centers will provide Oklahoma City seniors with affordable access to amenities and services they need to stay active, fit and healthy.

Construction is under way on the second MAPS 3 Senior Health & Wellness Center at 4021 S Walker Ave. It will have similar amenities and be operated by NorthCare. It’s set to open late this year.

The City is negotiating with Langston University for operation of the third senior center, which will be in a still-to-be-determined location in northeast Oklahoma City. It’s scheduled to open in 2019.

A fourth MAPS 3 Senior Health & Wellness Center is also planned and scheduled to open in 2021. The location and operating partner haven’t been selected.

[Pete]

Capitol Hill:

[Zuplar]

So are these basically like a YMCA that can only be used by person's 50 and up?

[Pete]

So are these basically like a YMCA that can only be used by person's 50 and up?

Yes, but they are nicer and are highly programmed with all types of programs other than just exercise.

[Zuplar]

Yes, but they are nicer and are highly programmed with all types of programs other than just exercise.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would the limit this to just 50+? Why not allow everyone and just charge different rates? Is there really enough desire for a place that is limited to 50+? To me this seems like most community centers, the exception here seems to me that it's limited to a certain group of people.

[Pete]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would the limit this to just 50+? Why not allow everyone and just charge different rates? Is there really enough desire for a place that is limited to 50+? To me this seems like most community centers, the exception here seems to me that it's limited to a certain group of people.

Because the facilities and programs are specifically tailored and targeted towards seniors, which is a group the City deemed to be under served and less likely to use existing facilities.

Seniors have unique fitness and diet issues as well as loneliness, isolation... These centers were designed with all that in mind. And from a purely financial standpoint, the huge amount of baby boomers who are now senior citizens are a big drag on healthcare, so anything that can be done to keep them healthy, happy and active benefits everyone.

If you want just a regular health clubs, Y's are about the same price, although the senior centers offer lower rates within some income ranges.

[Pete]

Capitol Hill High School with the senior center under construction to the south.

[warreng88]

Langston University to run MAPS wellness center

By: Brian Brus The Journal Record January 26, 2018

OKLAHOMA CITY – The third senior wellness center funded by the MAPS 3 sales tax will differ from the first two by incorporating medical students from Langston University.

Students taking classes in nursing, physical therapy and public health administration will have the opportunity to gain clinical experience at the center, said Alice Strong-Simmons, the university’s associate vice president of academic affairs.

“We’re very excited to have that additional opportunity for our students to interact with the community,” she said. “We love the inter-generational aspects of that – although 50’s not very old in my opinion.”

Four senior wellness centers are planned under the voter-approved Metropolitan Area Projects temporary sales tax. The first is already being run by Healthy Living & Fitness Inc. at 11501 N. Rockwell Ave.; the second, which will be managed by North Oklahoma County Mental Health Center Inc., is under construction at 4021 S. Walker Ave.

City Council members are expected to approve the initial contract terms with Langston Tuesday.

David Todd, City Hall’s MAPS 3 program manager, said the terms of the deal are similar to those of the previous two centers, although details such as the building’s address have not been clarified. Public documents confirm the property has not been acquired yet.

“It is anticipated that under a separate agreement, the city will acquire the land for the construction of the Senior Health and Wellness Center and then lease the land to the trust,” according to one of City Hall’s negotiating term sheets. The trust refers to the city’s Public Property Authority. “The trust will lease the land, together with all buildings, facilities and other improvements … in exchange for operator operating, managing and maintaining the leased premises at no cost to the city or trust.”

City leaders plan to put the four centers in each quadrant of the city. Todd said the third center will likely be built in the vicinity of NE 36th Street and Interstate 35.

Langston, the only historically black college in Oklahoma, is about 10 miles east of Guthrie. The university also has a campus at 6700 N. Martin Luther King Ave., just north of Interstate 44. Among Langston’s Oklahoma City campus programs is the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center.

Todd said City Hall is moving ahead with the selection of an architect for the $10 million center. Langston officials will be involved in its configuration, which will be different from the other centers.

“There’s no doubt it will be different, although I don’t know exactly what those differences will be,” Todd said. “But with them trying to integrate students working with physical therapy, I think we’ll see elements in that direction.”

Langston officials said earlier that the school would collaborate with Community Health Centers Inc. for primary health care services at the center and YMCA of Greater Oklahoma City for general fitness programs.

The first center has a swimming pool, yoga studio space, meeting rooms and a small health clinic with exam rooms. The second center has nine exam rooms and a larger clinic with fewer meeting rooms and a smaller pool. All the buildings will be equal in size and budget.

[Plutonic Panda]

The Pete White center near Capitol Hill opens May 4th. https://okc.gov/Home/Components/News/News/2661/5123

[warreng88]

OKC to consider 5th wellness center

By: Brian Brus The Journal Record April 25, 2018

OKLAHOMA CITY – The first senior wellness center under the city’s MAPS 3 sales tax issue has been so successful that the operators of the second and third centers are taking a closer look at its business model, project manager David Todd said.

The sales tax approved by voters in 2009 was only expected to produce enough revenue for four centers – in addition to a convention center, downtown streetcar and several other projects – but the citizen advisory board subcommittee has been talking lately about adding one more if the budget allows. Confidence in the program’s success is so high that Mike Knopp, executive director of the OKC Boathouse Foundation, has talked with City Hall officials about anchoring the fifth at the Oklahoma River near Bricktown, Todd said Wednesday.

The City Council decided early that each of the centers should be run separately by agencies that would reflect the local communities’ profiles. So the first is being run by Healthy Living & Fitness Inc. at 11501 N. Rockwell Ave.; the second at 4021 S. Walker Ave. will be managed by North Oklahoma County Mental Health Center Inc. The city recently entered into a partnership with Langston University for the third center, for which two potential sites are now being appraised.

The first center attracted more than 4,000 members in its first year of operation, according to Tom McDaniel, chairman of the MAPS 3 citizens advisory board. Officials expected to reach that number someday, but initial projections suggested no more than about 600 by now.

Todd said that Norman municipal government officials have asked for more details toward possibly doing something similar there.

Census Bureau data suggest the wellness centers will pay for themselves in the long-term. The year 2030 marks an important demographic turning point in U.S. history, according to the agency’s recently released projections report. By that year, all baby boomers will be older than age 65, which means that one in every five residents will be retirement age. Older people will outnumber children for the first time, and costs associated with aging – health care, primarily – will grow as well.

Oklahoma City University economics professor Russell Evans said the motivation to open senior wellness centers is likely more of a moral governance issue than an economic one, but the implications of the latter can’t be ignored.

“As people move into retirement, those early senior ages tend to be fairly high consumption years,” he said, referring to that segment’s spending power and the industry it generates. “That includes the consumption of medical services, which means you see growth in those sectors. The net effect is that they have a pretty positive economic impact initially, because their contribution supports more public services than they consume.

“But as they get older and move deeper into retirement, that balance begins to flip, and consumption begins to diminish as their contribution declines in terms of local jobs, income, and tax impacts become less compared with the public services they take advantage of,” Evans said.

The longer seniors remain healthy, the longer those negative economic effects are offset, he said.

Senior health is also vital to managing and budgeting nonprofit services, said Daniel Billingsley, vice president at the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits. Seniors who are ill need more help; seniors who are well are among the most reliable volunteers to provide that help.

“If we can keep people well longer, the economic value of that is that they’ll remain independent longer,” Billingsley said. “End-of-life care is incredibly expensive. These wellness centers not only help seniors live independently for longer, but they have greater vitality and are better off with regular activities and somewhere to go as a social outlet.”

Population projections were at the heart of Wednesday’s meeting as the citizens’ subcommittee tried to figure out the best spot to build the next wellness center. The biggest conflict seemed to be that the ZIP codes with the greatest need – populations reporting the highest rates of disease, heart attacks, and mortality – tend to cluster near each other, but the original intentions of the MAPS 3 plan were to spread out the centers as much as possible.

Subcommittee members including Chairman Michael Dover said they weren’t sure whether requests for proposals from management agencies should specify street boundaries or wait to see what turns up in the final bids. Todd said both approaches have worked so far.

The group decided to wait a little longer to identify the fourth and possibly fifth wellness center site until they could study population projection data provided by consultant company ADG.

As for the possibility of a Riversports partnership with one of the centers, Dover said he was intrigued. Subcommittee member and former City Councilman Sam Bowman said the idea had absolutely no appeal to him.

[Pete]

I sure wish they would build one closer to the core.

The closest to me is the one way out on Rockwell and that's just too darn far.

I'd join if one was closer, mainly for their pool (I'm a swimmer).

[HOT ROD]

the one on the southside is close to the core if not in it. I suspect the 3rd one will be on the Eastside, which is in the core right?

I don't know where the 4th will be built, but I'd like it to be near uptown. I honestlly think the centers should be built closeby where the hospitals are - so senior services can be readily, fully available.

Anctidotally, they are talking about the 5th being at the boathouse district - which is definitely in the metropolitan and city downtown core. ....

[SouthSide]

Why wouldn't seniors in the core just utilize the senior wellness center closest to them just like the rest of the residents in the four quadrants?

[RodH]

Why wouldn't seniors in the core just utilize the senior wellness center closest to them just like the rest of the residents in the four quadrants?

Seniors in the core or less likely to have the same transportation options as those who live outside the core.

[SouthSide]

Any data to back that up? I'm sure there are seniors throughout the city that have limited transportation options.

[Pete]

OCURA is acquiring land for an additional senior wellness center on the NE side, near NE 23rd and Kelly.

[shawnw]

[Laramie]

This is a good area for a senior wellness center on the east side. It's in walking distance of Ralph Ellison Library & Tinker Federal Credit Union; also many of the senior assisted living centers and senior centers are located in the area.

[hoya]

Seems like a good place for an expanded streetcar system to hit.

[SouthSide]

City announces the third center will be at NE 36th Street and Lincoln Boulevard and the fourth center will be on Western Avenue south of SW 134th Street.

[HOT ROD]

Far NW, Capital Hill, Eastside, Far S. Now we need in inner city N Central, perhaps downtown, far North, West, and maybe far SE. Then the city is fully covered - no excuses! Ditto the same sections/locations for Youth Centers (maybe a few more though).

Build these and along with the new gyms, fitness centers, Y's, and parks - watch OKC quickly get off those nasty fat and weight lists. Already should be making a push with the recent developments, but I'd say we're half done.

Downtown needs a few more private gyms and maybe even some clubs.