Cody Day Center
Lakewood, CO
Boulder Associates Inc.

Site location: suburban
Site area: 2.2 acres
Site capacity: 400 clients
Total project cost: $8,074,000

Architect’s Statement
The client’s program called for a single structure that would house twin senior day centers in a redeveloping area of an older suburb. Capitalizing on a sloping site, we developed a two-story solution that provides at-grade entries for participants at the upper level and for staff at the lower level. The plan allows both centers to operate independently, while sharing clinical, administrative, therapeutic, personal care, and service functions.

Owner’s Statement
As a PACE [Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly] provider, we work to improve the health care of our participants by providing under one roof every type of care and support that seniors need, managed by interdisciplinary teams that meet daily to review and monitor each participant’s condition. Because we offer so many services, the architects worked closely with our staff to establish the complex building program. Individual meetings with caregivers, therapists, drivers, home health aides, activities staff, and food service staff provided the details needed to create a building that better serves our participants, families, and staff.

Major Design Objectives and Responses

Provide a comfortable, warm, and inviting environment
Colorful exterior materials that include local stone, brick, block, and tile set the tone for the interior palette. Participants, families, and staff all respond to the welcoming ambience created by the warm colors, comfortable furniture, indirect lighting, and western-themed artwork

Design features to attract and retain staff
Improved ergonomics at workstations, large exam rooms, and extra space for assisting participants with personal care brings greater workplace safety. The building offers employees indoor and outdoor break areas, generous shower/locker rooms, and a fully equipped fitness facility, and on-site child care.


Specific Project Challenges and Responses

Resolve site boundary dispute
Inaccurate records and land title led the city to contest the ownership of a key 50-foot-wide strip of land along the main frontage. After lengthy negotiations with the city, the client retained use of 20 feet of this land .

Resolve drainage issues
A lack of storm sewers in vicinity, the sloping site, and requirements for storm water detention and water-quality treatment basins made the site appear significantly undersized for the program. The design team found a solution for the upper parking lot that funnels runoff through a water quality basin into underground stormwater detention tanks where roof drainage joins the runoff and then is metered out to the street at historic flow rates.

Obtain city planning and zoning approval
City planning guidelines recommended placing the building close to the street, which meant that van loading and unloading would require participants to be assisted by transportation staff to reach the dayrooms via the elevators. We convinced planning staff that the building needed adequate space for van loading at the south side on the upper level.

Address the need for daylight
Site constraints and programmatic requirements shaped the building into a deep rectangle, making it difficult for daylight to reach much of the building. We proposed a central skylit atrium that would bring light to the lower level and to interior offices on the upper level.

Develop a two-story solution to a single-story program
The day rooms, serving kitchens, administrative areas, personal care areas, and other functions needed by all participants on a daily basis are located on the upper level where participants enter and exit the facility. Functions not used daily by participants and staff-only areas are located on the lower level.

Operational Assumptions and Responses

Ensure that as many facilities as possible are shared between the two day centers
Collectively the client and design team determined that administrative and therapeutic areas could be shared. Staff support areas could be shared if sized properly. Separate personal care areas were located back to back to allow shared access to the tub room. The medical clinics also needed to be separate, yet they could share the specialists’ offices and med records, so the clinics were arranged to share a few common areas.

Ensure that appropriate facilities are independent of each other
The separate day centers are located on opposite sides of the building, each with its own entrance, dayrooms, outdoor patio, and elevator for quick access to therapeutic and clinic areas on the lower level. Each lobby has its own artwork to help differentiate them, and each center’s dayrooms have their own serving kitchen.

Ensure that the child care facility meets state and county regulations
The child care center has its own discrete entrance from the employee parking lot. The doors are secured until released by staff using a video intercom system. Outdoor play areas with shade structures were designed for three different age groups. Each indoor space is tailored to the needs of the three age groups, and a serving kitchen is provided

Goals of the Client and Design Team Solutions

Provide outdoor access for participants and staff
Despite the relatively tight site, the design team was able to organize the two centers’ dayrooms to open onto patio areas that feature stained concrete paving, landscaping, covered porches, shade-providing trellises, and custom fencing that will allow vines to help enclose them. Planters for participants to garden and gas grilles for special lunches add to the usefulness of these patios. Staff also have a trellis-covered outdoor patio.

Bring confidence to the organization and express commitment and passion for the its work
The design and quality of construction, and the thoughtful design of workspaces and flow of people through the building all work together to create the environment that truly meets this goal. Recruitment and retention of employees is easier at this center than at previous centers. The census has increased beyond established goals because of the response of family members and residents.

Status of the project: January 2004
Facility Administrator: Chuck Dodson
Owner: Total Longterm Care
Architect: Boulder Associates Inc.
Interior designer: Boulder Associates Inc.
Landscape architect: Land Architects Inc.
Structural engineer: Structural Consultants Inc.
Mechanical engineer: Boulder Engineering Co.
Electrical engineer: Boulder Engineering Co.
Civil engineer: Sellards & Grigg
Contractor: Calcon Constructors Inc.

Construction Costs
The following information is based on actual costs.
Final construction costs as of January 2004.
Building costs
Total building costs $5,951,000
Site costs
Total site costs $795,000
Total project costs $8,074,000