Public Buildings InfoSheet: Former Outback Teen Center

[Editor’s Note: The following has been prepared in advance of the “Forum on Public Buildings,” to be held 6:30 to 9 p.m. on April 26 at Town Hall (questions for panelists can be submitted here). Most of the information in the bullet points below is drawn from the Town Building Evaluation & Use Committee report.]

• 

  The former Outback Teen Center. Credit: Michael Dinan

  Built: 2001

• Square footage: 4,925
• Current uses: Vacant
• Committee recommendations: Renovate the building to house a new “alternative” New Canaan High School.
• Relevant articles: See links below.

Perhaps no town-owned building in New Canaan has generated more news coverage and opinions on future use than the former Outback Teen Center, a 17-year-old structure wedged between the Playhouse and Town Hall parking lots.

That news coverage has come in four waves since the Teen Center began to falter financially in earnest three years ago: first, as the organization’s board sought town support for a rejiggered program and then transferred ownership of the structure; second, as an area organization that serves developmentally disabled adults emerged with a proposed new use for the building (which didn’t pan out); third, when the Outback’s safety and physical viability was called into question; and finally, when the Board of Education proposed launching an “alternative” high school in it.

Ultimately, the Outback was found to be structurally sound, though it was diagnosed with a beetle infestation, and the town rejected the school board’s designs on it. Some $2.2 million had been raised in private funds to get the Outback built in 2000-01 (it opened in April 2001) many in town feel attached and invested in it.

Most recently, a committee of the Town Council has explored leasing or selling the former teen center, and Jill Pescatore has been selected as a Realtor to assist in that effort.

Though locked since closing in June 2015, the building has been vandalized at least once and it costs the town maintenance costs of about $50,000 annually even to keep it vacant, officials have said.

The cavernous interior has two main floors and there’s a small office on a third level. There are two ADA-compliant bathrooms on the ground floor, and two more on the main second floor, an open area with a kitchen. The building’s elevator is neither functioning nor compliant. The second floor of the Outback also is not ADA accessible.

Some in government have started referring to the former Outback as the ‘Town Hall Annex.’