ROCKPORT — Town officials agree — Rockport's senior citizens deserve a larger Senior Center.
There is disagreement, however, as to what is the best and most fiscally feasible location for the new center. The issue will be among the first topics addressed when selectmen meet tonight.
Selectmen will review a memo submitted by the Council on Aging describing the pros and cons of several locations, including three on Broadway, the Community House, the soon-to-be-vacated Granite Savings Bank building, and the Masonic Lodge, recently acquired by local contractor Alan Battistelli, as well as a parcel of town-owned land.
In a workshop meeting with Council on Aging members in January, selectmen suggested the council create a list of pros and cons for each location after completing visits to all sites.
Town Administrator Michael Racicot summarized the memo yesterday, saying the council ultimately decided it would prefer a new building on town-owned property or the Granite Savings Bank building over renting space from Battistelli. Using the Community House was the council's lowest-ranked option.
The full memo is available for public viewing at the selectmen's office in Town Hall.
Currently, the Council on Aging and Senior Center are housed in a moderately sized room in the Rockport High School Apartments building on Broadway. Lack of space is just one of the problems Council on Aging Director Diane Bertolino and Chairman Roger Lesch hope to rectify when selectmen decide on a suitable new home for the center.
Council members said they'd like the new Senior Center to have a function room that could hold 100 people, office space, smaller consulting rooms, a kitchen, an elevator, storage space and a computer room. Bertolino has said a number of Rockport elders travel to Gloucester's senior center to participate in computer classes that Rockport's center has neither the staff nor the space to offer.
Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee member Christopher Lewis, who recently lost his bid for a selectman's seat, said yesterday he has created a steering committee of nearly a dozen town officials and community leaders that will recommend to the fall Town Meeting that it support purchasing the Granite Savings Bank for use as a senior center.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime shot to purchase a strategic parcel next to Town Hall with 14 parking spaces," Lewis said. "I think financially, it would be easily doable."
Lewis said the town could use the money earned by the sale of the Haven Avenue lots and the former Carnegie Library to purchase the bank building, which he's heard could sell for between $700,000 and $800,000.
Granite Savings Bank President Norm Seppala has said the building's selling price would most likely not be unveiled until at least midsummer.
The bank is set to move its operations to a new, 10,453-square-foot headquarters on Upper Main Street by early next year, at which time it would sell its building at 26 Broadway, Seppala said last December.
In January, then-Selectman Joseph Lisi said even if the bank building did not become the Senior Center, it would be foolish of the town not to look at the structure for future municipal use.
"The space (Rockport seniors) have now is very limited," Lewis said. "People go to the Rose Baker center, so it seems like a pretty urgent need. (The bank building) is not going to give (the council) the square footage they'd ideally like, but it also won't cost as much as building a new center."
Bertolino said the state recommends senior centers allot 5 to 6 square feet per elder in town. With 2,000 seniors in Rockport — nearly a third of the town's 7,343 citizens — the ideal center would be around 12,000 square feet.
The bank building offers an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 square feet, Lewis said.
Lewis told Racicot yesterday he would withdraw his article at fall Town Meeting if selectmen craft one of their own.
"I'm there as a safety valve, a backup in case they get too busy and don't get to it," Lewis explained. "The town has to decide one way or the other, yes or no, and I'm going to give them the chance to do it."
The selectmen's meeting tonight begins with the swearing-in ceremony of Selectmen-elect Andrew Heinze and Ellen Canavan at 6:45.
Jonathan L'Ecuyer can be reached at jlecuyer@gloucestertimes.com.
