Located in Pittsburgh, PA- The Women's Center & Shelter, houses administrative staff, spaces for the non-resident counseling services, residential facilities for victims of intimate partner violence and child care program for toddlers, infants and teens whose mothers are residents at the facility. The facility currently has a 36 bed capacity for residents and their children and has been experiencing 110% occupancy causing WC&S to turn away women in critical need of shelter. The renovation will replace mechanical systems and equipment that are at the end of their life-cycle, increase the residential capacity to 46-48 beds, will enhance security and reorganize administrative and non-residential services to make greater use of the facility. Outdoor areas will be improved to support the children’s activities in a safe and secure area and overall lighting, parking, and stormwater systems will be upgraded.
Located in Allston- Brighton, the West End House Boys & Girls club (WEH) provides a secure and enriching environment for youth between the ages of 7-20. WEH is the largest youth development agency in Boston and has grown from 50 % to 1, 500 youths. WEH also provided 113 youths with jobs and 2, 500 hours of job readiness training. WEH requested the renovation and expansion of the Lewis & Gordon Center in order to create 11, 000 SF of new program space while improving the existing 32, 000 SF facility.
Founded in 1991, Artists for Humanity mission is to provide under-resourced urban youth with the keys to self-sufficiency through paid employment in art and design. With this development, Artists for Humanity is undertaking a 52,000 SF expansion of its current EpiCenter building in Boston, MA. AFH built the LEED Platinum Epicenter in 2004 in a blighted area of South Boston. The EpiCenter allowed AFH to hire and train approximately 250 youth artists each year in its highly-successful, arts-based youth development program. Since then, demand for the program has grown tremendously and this development will allow AFH to double its capacity while adding additional spaces for events, galleries, maker studios, and office space leased to 3rd parties.
The Shannon West Homeless Youth Center is a new 37,000 SF 86-bed homeless shelter for youth ages 16-24. The building will contain six single-room occupancy (SRO) units and forty dormitory-style rooms with two beds each, for a total of eighty dormitory beds. The Project will be owned and operated by HELP of Southern Nevada, a private 501(c)(3) comprehensive social service providerthat has been operating in Nevada since 1970. HELP has grownfrom an organization serving 300 people annually to servingover 100,000 and it is now the premier community resource inSouthern Nevada. They currently operate a 60-bed homeless youth shelter out of an under-sized and inefficient facility indowntown Las Vegas. With this Shannon West project, HELP can relocate from their existing site and expand their program, allowing them to serve an additional 480 youth annually.
The Galvan Community Center is a community revitalization project in Hudson, NY. The development will allow for the historic renovation and expansion of the Armory Building, a prominent three-story medieval gothic building in the heart of the downtown. The renovated building features an expansion of the Hudson Area Library, newly renovated space for PerfectTen, a local non-profit providing after-school programming to girls in Hudson, community event space and an affordable art studio and antique storage space, building on an important component of the local economy. The project also included renovation of several vacant brick buildings along Hudsonâs main commercial street to accommodate a 5-classroom school, commercial space and 7 residential units.
UTEC is a youth education and workforce training program located in Lowell, MA. To update its facilities and meet its growing needs, UTEC renovated and expanded its building to include a renovated cafe and commercial kitchen, a performance center, and classrooms. The building's energy-saving design features, including a natural ventilation system that incorporates the old church steeple into the new green design, achieved LEED Platinum certification. UTEC is the first LEED Platinum-certified building in Lowell and the oldest building in the country to achieve such high standards of energy efficiency. Watch the building transform in this video about the construction.