Above: The Senior Center’s new room is ready for use, and the Council on Aging is inviting the public to celebrate. (contributed photo)
The Town is welcoming the public to join them in celebrating the opening of the Senior Center’s addition a week from tomorrow.
The Council on Aging invites:
We would be honored to have you join us for this momentous occasion and meet many of those who were instrumental in making this wonderful and necessary addition a reality.
The celebration is for the new “Common Room” added to the front-center of the building. For those unfamiliar, click on the the before and after pics below for comparison:
The ribbon cutting and room dedication will take place on September 18th at 8:30 am. (Obviously, that’s at the Senior Center, which is located at 9 Cordaville Road.) The event will include speeches and “light refreshments”.
Here are more details on the successfully completed Common Room from the announcement:
The Southborough Council on Aging Board of Directors has exciting news to share with our extended community. A couple of years ago, the Town of Southborough allocated ARPA funds to enable the construction of a much needed addition to our Senior Center. In order to be able to accomplish the construction of the addition, the students and staff at Assabet Valley Regional Vocational High School accepted the challenge to build the addition and stay within the allocated budget.
The project was completed before the end of 2023 – 2024 school year. The members of the Council on Aging Board of Directors and the staff of the Senior Center couldn’t be more proud of the student and faculty achievements. Now it is time to share the wonderful addition to our facility with our friends and neighbors. . .
Seeing our ‘tax dollars’ being utilized on behalf of our aging population is most gratifying and heartwarming.
Following the completion of the Assabet team’s work, the Town still had some details to finish on their end before it could be opened. As the renovation was coming in under the initially approved budget, the extra ARPA funds were tapped into to cover the cost of furnishing the room (plus painting/siding the Senior Center and landscaping for the Town House).
The newly added room doesn’t mean that advocates for programming space for Southborough seniors are satisfied that needs will be met for decades. The addition was approved as an interim measure to meet the needs of the current population in the shorter term.
With projections of a senior population continuing to grow, a new facility for seniors still in consideration as part of the Town’s (paused but continuing) exploration of a potential project for a future community center with Town offices.
(That is something that will come up in discussions about the Neary Building Project headed to a Town Meeting in April and the possible future use of Finn School building if the schools are consolidated as planned.)
