Senior Center Ready to Make Way for Renovations

If all goes as planned, seniors in the Larchmont-Mamaroneck area will be getting a brand new kitchen, a quiet game room, two handicapped bathrooms and more when renovation plans for the Senior Center in the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Boston Post Road come to fruition.

"The updated space/rooms will help out so much with the variety of activities we would like to plan each day," said Senior Center Coordinator Maria Gallagher.

The solarium, which is currently used for storage, will give birth to the game room, and the porch will be divided into two rooms and made into an area available to seniors 12 months a year.

The $400,000 project is still in the works, and probably will not be completed until early 2011, but the town has already secured a $150,000 federal grant from the Community Development Block Grant Program. The rest will be covered by a bond issued by the Town of Mamaroneck, according to Town Administrator Steve Altieri.

During the renovation period, which is expected to begin in November and last about three months, the center will most likely move to the Town of Mamaroneck fire house on Weaver Street. Prior to the move, however, the center will have to secure County Health Department approvals for its Nutrition Site, said Gallagher.

The town considered relocating to other sites, including the Pavilion at Harbor Island, but the fire house is "top of the list right now" because "it has the most positives for our needs," said Gallagher. Moving to the Pavilion would have required additional on-site updates to meet Health Department requirements, she added.

For those who do not wish to park on the side streets by the fire house, the center plans to run a shuttle bus from the center's parking lot at the VFW building to the new site.

Most activities will take place in the new location, but two of the programs (the Tuesday/Thursday Bridge and the Wednesday Art Class) will take place in the Community Room at the Hommocks Ice Rink because of space, said Gallagher.

Arconics Architecture, P.C. will be in charge of the project. Previously, the firm handled the re-construction of the senior center in Port Chester, a $3 million project that resulted in a 12,000 square foot site featuring a library, three activity spaces, a billiard room and a multi-purpose room with a kitchen. The project received an award from the Westchester Municipal Planning Federation in 2007.

The Town Board will vote on the award of the bid contract for the renovation project once bids are received, but a specific date has not been set, said Altieri.