What’s next for the Decas School?

May 10, 2022

Following Town Meeting’s April 25 vote in support of creating a community center in the now vacant Decas Elementary School, the future of the community center proposal is ... clear as mud.

Advocates for the proposed center want town officials to push forward with moving the Council of Aging’s senior center to the building this summer and to actively solicit proposals from outside groups to rent space in a Decas Community Center.

Skeptics — among them many town officials — want to await the result of a feasibility study commissioned by Town Meeting in October. And they continue to suggest that there might be better ways for the town to use the school and the 15.5 acres on which it sits.

Complicating the matter are different interpretations of what the Town Meeting vote legally requires, the recent town election in which three of the five Select Board seats changed hands and the fact that the group charged with overseeing the feasibility study – dubbed the Decas School Steering Committee – is composed of residents who want to forge ahead with creating the center.

The Decas School was vacated in January when the new Wareham Elementary School on Minot Avenue opened.

Even before then, its future use had been actively discussed. A study by the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District concluded that the property would best be used to attract businesses needing laboratory and office space. Meanwhile, a group of citizens organized the Decas for All campaign promoting a community center.

The group petitioned Town Meeting in Fall 2021 to pursue the plan to turn the school into a community center. Town Meeting obliged by creating the requested steering committee and giving the group $15,000 to pay for a feasibility study of community-focused uses of the building. The intention was to give the committee time to come back with research and a completed study to present at this coming fall’s Town Meeting.

While commissioning the study – still in progress – from Boston firm The Jones Payne Group, Inc., the steering committee and a separate non-profit Decas Community Center Foundation have worked to flesh out their idea and find potential tenants for the building. A group of advocates, led by resident Leslie Edwards Davis, petitioned April’s Town Meeting to move the Council of Aging into the school by July 1; put out a request for proposals for other tenants; and give the Steering Committee and foundation access to the building to plan for its conversion.

Much to the group’s frustration, Town Moderator Claire Smith told Town Meeting that it did not have the authority to tell the town’s “executive branch” to do those things and thus the vote could be only advisory. With that direction and after much discussion, the meeting voted in a verbal majority in favor of the proposal.

Since then, things seem to be in a holding pattern as Town Administrator Derek Sullivan says he and others are awaiting the results of the feasibility study.

Sullivan has said that while the firm is conducting its feasibility study and the committee is researching Decas, requests-for-proposals could be a useful tool in assessing the school’s revenue streams if its space was rented out. Having the complete report from the committee this fall would be necessary before anything happens in Decas, he said, adding that the town is still in the midst of assessing the building’s needs.

Meanwhile, the steering committee is discussing doing a “boots on the ground” survey of residents about their opinion of the project, and the Select Board is reorganizing in the wake of the election.

Still on the board are Chair Judith Whiteside, who is skeptical of the plan, and Alan Slavin, who has emphasized that the use of the building is up to Sullivan. Community Center supporter Jim Munise was not reelected. Also off the board are Peter Teitelbaum and Patrick Tropeano.

The board’s new members support the idea of the community center but expressed caution about moving too quickly.

“I believe that it would make a very good community center, with the fields, multiple veterans affair services in there along with Council on Aging, once the building is prepped and we’re ready to put them in there,” Chadwick said, saying he’s concerned that if the town rushes to move the Council on Aging in, they might need to move the seniors out for further work.

He said that he doesn’t think it makes sense to put the Public Safety Complex there, a possibility that sparked hot discussion during Town Meeting. The school’s location would make it hard for ambulances to reach some areas of town quickly in an emergency, Chadwick and others have said.

Tricia Wurts said that she can’t yet speak to what should happen in an official capacity — as a member of the Select Board, she has to “think as the town,” she said. She plans to do more research and learn more about what work has been done before she can take an official stance.

As a citizen, however, Wurts said that her preference would be to see the building converted to a community center with a focus on serving the elderly and those in need. She also said she’s wary about allowing industrial uses in residentially zoned areas.

Alan Slavin noted that because the Town Administrator has control of the Decas building, he is the one who will decide what happens next.

Ron Besse — newly appointed liaison to the steering committee — said he hoped the committee would expand their work to look at other possible municipal uses of the building, and said the town should have back-up plans.

According to steering committee Chair Diane Kenney, committee members focused only on municipal uses of Decas — primarily the community center idea — not on the possibilities of selling the land. But they too are waiting for the results of the feasibility study.

Still, throughout the researching process, the fact-finding and prolonged discussion at Town Meeting, Kenney said the group is still confident in their charge.

“We’ve become even more certain that it will work,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a clarified and condensed version.