Members of the St. Susan’s Center team are pictured presenting the center’s plans for the Jamestown Business College property to members of the City Planning Commission.

St Susan’s Center is starting work on their plans for a project set to take over the old Jamestown Business College Campus in collaboration with the UCAN City Mission.

St Susan’s team members Charles Holder, Greg Lindquist, Cherie Rowland, and Kelly Johnson, along with the project’s architect, Chris Cooke Architects, presented the project to the city planning commission on Tuesday. The current plan for the project is that UCAN will get the campus’s existing mansion at the south end and then St Susan’s will take the other building to the north.

“It’s about 470 square feet times two,” Cooke said. “Basically, this first space will be left open, somewhat undeveloped. It’s currently classrooms, bathrooms, things like that.”

Inside upstairs includes more classroom and office space, which Cooke said will be converted. While parts of the inside will change, there will be a minimal amount of outside facade changes, with plans to split the property as equally as possible between the two organizations. Cooke presented the proposed site plans to the planning commission, which included separating the two buildings, some fencing, parking, and landscaping, saying that the building itself is not planned to change that much.

“The building as it is today is not going to change all that much,” Cooke said. “We’ve included and improved some signage here in the front facade … trying to balance aesthetics with also functionality.”

Indoor plans include opening up the classrooms and working on the front area cafeteria space, with 96 seats currently planned to be included in the building. Cooke said the plan is to make it as warm and welcoming as possible. Some laundry services may also be included, with the plan for down the road to have the bottom floor kitchen to become a teaching space. The seating arrangement plans will allow for St Susan’s to have a little bit more seats available than currently.

“Currently we set up every day for 86 guests, but it has the capacity for 164,” St Susan’s Executive Director Cherie Rowland said. “But we’ve never, in the three years I’ve been there, our churn seems to be around 80 people every hour.”

It was noted that representatives from UCAN will also present to the Planning Commission, and that while JBC still owns the property there is an agreement between the three. Procedurally, the plans will have two separate SEQRs to be approved at the April meeting, and a public hearing planned for the subcommission. The hope of the Planning Commission is to have all of that accomplished within the context of the April meeting. The plans will have to go in front of the county Planning Board as well.