Dover recycles middle school as community center for nonprofits

As nonprofit agencies across the country struggle to find funding in the wake of persistent federal budget cuts and lost revenue from other financial contributors, many of Dover’s social service agencies and local nonprofits have found a common home and shared resources in the newly renovated McConnell Community Center, in the heart of downtown at 61 Locust St.

The official ribbon cutting is scheduled for mid-January and an open house is slated for April, but things are already up and running for a few of the tenants at the Community Center, and more agencies are scheduled to move in during the coming weeks.

When Gary Bannon, recreation manager for the city of Dover, moved the offices for the Dover Recreation Department from the Butterfield Gym to the Community Center in December, he also earned the title of building administrator for his new digs and now oversees the day-to-day operations of the project. Dover Recreation is McConnell’s biggest tenant, occupying 12,000 square feet of space, and Bannon has been involved in the ongoing planning and development for the renovations of the former Dover Middle School since the building was vacated six years ago.

The 103,000-square-foot building, built in 1904 and modified in 1928 and 1980, has undergone an $8 million dollar renovation to prepare for its new function as a central campus for a wide variety of services.

“We went back to the backbone and did it over,” Bannon says of the construction project.

The building is now equipped with new electrical wiring, windows, heating system, plumbing and wiring for technological equipment. With four floors and 69,000 square feet of available office space, the city hopes the McConnell Center will accommodate up to 25 different agencies, depending on office size.

There are four legs on the stool in the vision of the McConnell Community Center, according to Bannon—health, education, recreation and culture. The Dover Recreation Department and the Dover Police Outreach Teen Center have opened their doors in the past weeks. The Dover Community Center and the Dover Adult Learning Center will begin operating out of the McConnell Center in the first few days of 2007. Ageless Dreamers, the Dover Children’s Center, Dover Human Services, New Hampshire Easter Seals, the HUB Family Resource Center, Seacoast Hospice, Strafford County CAP, the UNH Social Work Internship Program, and Pete’s Place from Wentworth-Douglass Hospital are all contracted to move into McConnell in the near future.

With the creation of a central location for many non-profits came the creation of a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit itself, the McConnell Tenants Committee. The MTC was created to assist the current nonprofits, raise funds for the center and coordinate collaboration among tenants.

Erika Hunter, coordinator of the MTC, says the center is a place that can benefit everyone who comes through its doors. It is an amorphous project, Hunter says, where “nothing is written in stone.” The Center will change as its tenants change. “New people come in with different wants, needs and desires and we will figure out how the building can best serve those organizations who serve our community,” she says.

Buildings with office space and shared resources for a variety of nonprofit agencies exist across the country, including one serving the greater Boston area, but Bannon says the McConnell Center is unique in that it was created around a building, whereas many other centers are built after a coalition of programs is established. The compromise is that the space fits some agencies better than others, such as those with more concise layouts.

With a bond contribution of $5.5 million, the city footed most of the bill for the project. For 20 years, the debt will be paid with tenants’ rent, after which tenants will only pay for maintenance and the building’s utility fees. The city paid for most of the cost to renovate the infrastructure, but tenants must pay to build up their office spaces, helping to offset the cost of construction. Bannon says the re-use committee, which began meeting in 2004, planned this partnership with the philosophy that “We want to help you, but we can’t afford to do the whole thing.”

Hunter is enthusiastic about coordinated programming across different services and the “beautiful things” that can come from those collaborations. She envisions a time when groups that serve vastly different constituencies, like Ageless Dreamers, a group that works with the elderly, and the Dover Children’s Center, work to bring children and the elderly together to read to one another in one of the center’s common rooms. This is just one of many possible collaborations, Hunter says, that come from the central location and shared space the McConnell Center provides.

MTC will focus on expanding these collaborations and shared resources among the groups housed in the building by facilitating monthly meetings and helping with grant writing and other fundraising efforts. “We will see each other regularly and share ideas and projects,” she says. Also, MTC will help nonprofits share resources by organizing bulk orders of supplies to outfit the offices and save money, “Money that can be used for direct services or new equipment. They can better serve their clients, and it means so much because of the pressure to find funding when funding is so scarce.”

Bannon says that all tenants will have access to the building’s common areas, which include conference rooms, an auditorium, a gymnasium and the cafeteria. The Dover Adult Learning Center will maintain a computer room but other groups will have access to it. These spaces and resources are also available to other businesses and the general public.

For now, the center is still under construction. The cafeteria is taped off and waiting for appliances, and many of the offices are unfinished. The walls may be blank, but Bannon can see the day when they will be filled with contributions from local artists and a mosaic of tiles made by community members.

Looking to the future, both Bannon and Hunter hope to expand the cultural component of the McConnell Community Center’s mission statement by creating a space for artists of all levels of expertise to come together and create. “We are working toward realizing our vision and we have a lot of ideas,” Hunter says. She also says there is a vibrant artistic community in Dover and the surrounding area. “There is a sense in the air to create something special artistically,” and the McConnell Center is a place that could help to establish a “recognizable arts community.”

Hunter, a writer and jazz musician, sees the arts as crucial to both community and personal development. “We all have multiple talents and we can choose to develop them or let them lie latent. The arts express the ineffable.” She hopes the center can schedule shared programming and be part of community-wide celebrations of culture.

The coming months for the McConnell Community Center are about expanding and marketing, Bannon says. One of the challenges to the building is its size and the eight entrance doors, which “can be confusing.” Bannon says he and others will work to make sure that people who use the building will know what is where and how to get there.

Hunter says the future of the center is determined by the wants and needs of the community it serves. While not certain, it’s promising.
“We support what the community is asking for. They want a lot and we want to give them a lot,” she says.

The McConnell center is online at www.ci.dover.nh.us/McConnell.

Maureen Reilly is the 2006-2007 civic journalism fellow for the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. The program is funded by the Partnership for Effective Nonprofits.