Inside a spacious kitchen and community space on the ground floor of a factory building turned loft housing, seven people aged 15 to 18 are sitting around a table planning what could be a transformational project aimed at the youth of Midtown Kingston — the conversion of a sprawling, long-vacant former fabric factory on Greenkill Avenue into a space where kids can explore new careers and hobbies, get hands-on experience with everything from a metal press to a 3-D printer, or just have a place where they feel safe and welcome.

The Metro is the latest effort by the NoVo foundation in Midtown Kingston. The vision is something like a combination of BOCES-style vocational education where youth can explore the offerings in a 15,000-square-foot fabrication space known as the “Fab Lab,” with tools in place for wood and metal working, jewelry design, welding and more. The space will also be a point of access for everything from mental health services to healthy food — for free. Beyond the Fab Lab, plans for the location’s 70,000-square-foot space are still evolving, but members of the YMCA Farm Project’s design team are working to make sure that whatever emerges there is truly representative of the needs and wants of the neighborhood and its residents.

“The Metro overall is a nice, accessible space for youth to gather and connect through the things we have there, through careers at the fabrication center, or the mental health stuff, or whatever,” said Alexander Rios, 18. “Just a place where people can connect to many different areas.”

The YMCA kids already have experience in urban design and community outreach. They worked on a plan for two small pocket parks across from the Y on Grand Street that will begin taking shape this fall. Scattered around the space are plans for the Broadway Bubble, a Novo-funded laundromat and community space on Broadway. Soon, they’ll turn their attention to another small greenspace being built by Radio Kingston.

“The youth in this community should have agency in the decisions being made about their neighborhood,” said Susan Hereth, educational director of the Farm Project.

As part of their mission, each member of the team solicited input from 10 Midtown residents asking questions like what kinds of food options and events they’d like to see at the Metro, whether they were likely to use the fabrication space, and what would make the building feel safe and comfortable for them. The team members also have their own ideas, like the need for mental health resources for a generation battered by the pandemic. Team member Wilson Speller said the Metro had to address the state of the city’s food landscape, which offered little that was both healthy and affordable. The design crew is also wrestling with a question that has vexed urban design for decades: how to improve quality of life for neighborhood residents without fueling gentrification.

“One of the topics we covered in this project was trying to incorporate everything the community needs, but also trying not to make it desirable to people who are out of the space because of gentrification,” said Roslyn Vargas, 17.

The design team will get a chance to share their ideas, and get more community input on Thursday when they host a Q & A at The Metro at 5 p.m. The event is one of a number of activities at the space as project sponsors work to get the neighborhood accustomed to the idea of the Metro and begin thinking about what they want to see there. While plans for the Fab Lab are in place, project lead Martin Kirk said that the door was wide open for use of the remaining 55,000 square feet. Kirk said that could mean anything from a music studio to apprenticeship programs in various trades to social spaces. Kirk said that by allowing community members like the design team to take the lead in the planning process, he hoped to ensure the project, NoVo’s largest to date in Kingston, would end up being a true reflection of the community.

“If a person from Midtown can’t walk into the Metro and truly feel like it’s theirs, we’ve done something wrong,” said Kirk.