Washougal Community Center to close temporarily for downtown revitalization project

Community groups scramble to find temporary housing for the next 2 to 3 months

By Doug Flanagan
October 17, 2024 2:00 pm
Government, Latest News, News, Washougal

Renovation work has begun at the Washougal Community Center, which will be closed for at least the next eight weeks. (Doug Flanagan/Post-Record)

Major changes at the Washougal Community Center are leading to major changes for some of Washougal’s most prominent community organizations.

The community center is closed for at least eight weeks and possibly as many as 12 weeks for the initial phase of the city of Washougal’s Town Center Revitalization Project (WTR), which means Refuel Washougal, the Washougal Senior Center and Meals on Wheels People Washougal have had to temporarily i find other buildings that support their services.

“The team here has done a great job working with those partners to find solutions for temporarily, or in some cases, permanently relocating, some of those functions and services so everybody’s kind of taken care of,” Washougal City Manager David Scott said. “We all know that when there’s construction, whether it’s streets or we’re remodeling our house or we’re remodeling a community center, that there are disruptions that aren’t really fun. But then when you’re done, it’s like, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ We’re in that disruption mode right now while we do the construction, but we’re really looking forward to the end product.”

The city of Washougal has hired Schommer and Sons, a Portland-based contractor, to remodel the community center’s interior; replace exterior windows with a storefront roll-up door and a sectional door; install an exterior canopy; replace exterior siding and demolish two adjacent houses.

“We are thrilled to see the Washougal Town Center Revitalization Project moving forward,” said Michelle Wright, the City’s public works business administrator. “While the demolition and temporary closure may pose challenges, these changes are essential for enhancing community resources and addressing the needs of our growing population.”

The downtown revitalization project will create outdoor community spaces, an off-leash dog park, a pocket park, a splash pad, children’s play elements, and improved and expanded public parking, according to a news release.

The City expects to begin the bidding process for the remainder of the project later this year and begin full-scale construction in January 2025. The City is hoping the project will be completed by the end of 2025 or early 2026.

Meals on Wheels scrambles to find temporary home

Meals on Wheels People is a Portland-based service organization that prepares meals and delivers them to dozens of dining centers throughout Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties, where they are served to older adults on-site or sent out to older adults who are homebound.

Chelsea Kyle, the manager of the group’s Washougal center, arranged to move her services, which also include a weekly food bank, to The Outpost in Washougal after being notified of the community center’s impending closure.

Then Kyle learned in September that the Washington Pacific Church of the Nazarene, the Tumwater, Washington-based owners of The Outpost, had decided to sell the building and close The Outpost at the end of October.

“I was just shocked because I just really was not expecting that,” Kyle said. “I really just got settled in (at The Outpost). I had to change my delivery days, so that shook things up for my clients and volunteers. To hear that I had to switch things up again left me pretty startled and a little frantic because of the timeframe. I didn’t have much time to make other arrangements.”

Kyle quickly pivoted to her “Plan B” — St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Washougal.

“I had also been talking to St. Anne’s, and they were really receptive to hosting us,” Hyle said. After learning about The Outpost’s closure, Kyle reached out to Annie Calhoun, the vicar at St. Anne’s in Washougal, and Calhoun told her to come over and they could work out the details.

The Meals on Wheels People’s Washougal branch will operate out of The Outpost through Oct. 31, and then open at St. Anne’s on Nov. 4. Kyle will use the church as base to coordinate home deliveries and host weekly food banks (from noon to 1 p.m. on Mondays), but will not serve a weekly lunch like she did at the community center.

“I just don’t know if I can work out the schedule,” she said. “Had we done this months ago, maybe we could have worked it out, but now that we’re changing halfway, it’s just too much. We won’t have any lunch (at St. Anne’s). Of course, everybody has been very upset about not having in-person lunches. There’s just not much I can do about it.”

Kyle said her biggest challenge has been rearranging her home delivery schedules, adding that she drives regularly between her still-available office at the community center and another Meals on Wheels People office in Battle Ground.

Kyle said that while she’s looking forward to returning to the renovated community center, which she believes will provide a better experience for her clients, she is “managing” the temporary changes and grateful for community support.

“We’re trucking along,” she said. “I think things are going pretty OK.”

Washougal Senior Association figures out next steps

Washougal Senior Association members have gathered at the Washougal Community Center for many years to enjoy a variety of daily activities, such as ping-pong, billiards, cribbage, pinochle, rock-painting, bingo and watercoloring, as well as each other’s company in a social environment.

Like Kyle, the Association’s leaders arranged to move their entire operation to The Outpost, and were similarly stunned when they learned of The Outpost’s impending closure.

“We had arranged with them to have everything go over there. We were so excited,” said the Association’s vice president, Tanya Irvin. “We knew a week before we were (supposed to move there) that we weren’t going to The Outpost. Then we started scrambling, trying to figure out what we were going to do.”

“We were feeling kind of lost,” the Association’s president, Charlie Walker, added. “(Losing The Outpost) was a kick in the head and a half.”

Unlike Kyle, however, the Washougal Senior Association didn’t even have a chance to move their operation to The Outpost.

“We were trying to figure out what to do, where to go,” Irvin said. “We were scrambling. But everything now has a place except for ping-pong and billiards.”

The Association will operate out of several different buildings for at least the next two months. The food bank, a partnership with Meals on Wheels People, Washougal, will operate from noon to 1 p.m. every Monday at The Outpost through the end of October, and at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church starting Nov. 4.

Fitness classes will be held from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. every Monday, at the Camas Community Center, 1817 S.E. Seventh Ave., Camas.

Bingo will be played at 1 p.m. every Wednesday, at the Camas Community Center.

The Association’s senior potluck will be held at 11 a.m. on the first Thursday of every month, at the Camas Community Center, and rock-painting and water-coloring sessions will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Friday, at the Bethel Community Church, 1438 “B” St., Washougal.

“It’s only been a week, but so far, things have been good,” Irvin said. “(The new locations) were very accommodating. This is what happens a lot of the time in small communities — people want to help other people out. That’s the way it should be.”

Refuel Washougal moves to St. Anne’s during closure

Refuel Washougal, a nonprofit that provides people in need with free weekly meals and access to shelter in the event of severe weather, has also temporarily moved to St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Washougal.

Fran Whitmeyer, a Refuel board member and former St. Anne’s senior warden, said the church has been very welcoming.

“I talked to Annie (Calhoun), and she brought it up immediately to the bishops’ committee, which is the ruling body of St. Anne’s,” Whitmeyere said. “I just followed protocol, and they took a vote, and they said ‘Yes, we will do what we have to do, to support Refuel and to bring it to St. Anne’s, because we have the entrance way for people and we have a big enough place.’ St. Anne’s has a fairly large parish hall, and we’re using about half of it.”

The guests are dealing with “a few different rules that we didn’t have before,” Whitmeyer said.

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“Because we don’t have a commercial dishwasher, we are serving everything on disposable paper plates. We (provide) trays, but they cannot eat on the trays. They have to pick up all of their items, put them on the table, and then take the trays back so they can be washed and sanitized.”

Whitmeyer said the changes may cause a few issues, but the group is trying to make the best of the situation.

“Because we have changed, there will be people with problems,” she said. “Because we’re at a church, there are people that have a problem with that. (We have) people who are claustrophobic. They just have to come inside and sit down and eat. And because it’s a tighter quarters than the community center, people are getting to know new people, so that’s a plus.”

The volunteers also have a few new rules to follow, including restrictions on certain types of food and a smaller area to prepare food in, Whitmeyer said.

Refuel, which serves meals from 4 to 6 p.m. every Friday, opened for business at St. Anne’s on Sept. 13, serving 54 people, a decrease from the 100 to 120 people it usually serves.

“We’re not doing to-go (meals anymore),” Whitmeyer said. “When we did 100 or 125, sometimes we were feeding only 40 or 50 and the rest of them were walking out the door.”

When the group announced that to-go meals would be unavailable — a permanent change for Refuel — starting with the temporary move to St. Anne’s.

Whitmeyer said she is looking forward to going back to the Washougal Community Center after the renovations.

“My understanding is that they will not be doing anything in the kitchen, so the kitchen will be the same when we get back. We are very lucky to have a commercial kitchen to serve the community out of,” she said. o

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