Timing, location of mayor’s plan to build senior center questioned

The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY - The city’s top advocate for seniors and the park board’s longest serving member are both raising concerns about Mayor William Phelan’s plan to convert the Richard J. Koch complex into Quincy’s first senior center.

Elder Services Director Thomas Clasby questioned whether the complex at Merrymount Park was the best location and said that as liaison to the city’s 18,000 seniors, he wants more say in the project. Bryant Carter, a 21-year park board member, accused the mayor of unveiling the plan last month for his “political advantage” before the Nov. 6 election. He also denounced it as a “rush job” which has so far sought no input from the public.

Phelan deflected the criticism, saying the plan is still in its infancy and has been molded on results of a senior survey and tours of senior centers around the state.

“We’ve already reached out, and we’ll be having public hearings,” Phelan said. “This is a good thing that’s long overdue.”

The administration envisions the center as a retreat for seniors, with bocce and tennis courts alongside acres of outdoor open space and, inside, technology classrooms, a dance studio, an exercise room and all-purpose entertainment room.

The park and recreation department would first have to be moved from the Koch complex, which consists of two office buildings on six acres in Merrymount Park. Renovations to the buildings and grounds would follow.

Equipment and about two dozen park department employees would be moved to the department of public works garage under construction on Sea Street. The city’s elder services and health departments would move to the complex.

Phelan estimated the project will cost $1 million to $3 million and be completed within a year. Last week, the city hired Graham/Meus Architects to design the senior center.

Calls for a senior center stretch back more than a decade. In 2000, Mayor James Sheets laid out plans for one at the Squantum Gardens senior housing development, complete with activity rooms, a greenhouse and a health clinic. The project never materialized.

John Molloy of the council on aging said smaller-scale activity centers for seniors can be found at senior housing apartments, the Fore River clubhouse and at Beechwood on the Bay.

“What we’d really like to have is one central place that is ours,” Molloy said.

“A lot of seniors are alone,” he said. “It’s a place to go, a reason to get up in the morning, go out and be active.”

Phelan first hinted at plans to build a senior center in 2005, saying the city needed a cultural center with senior programs. On Wednesday, Phelan said the administration began to explore the possibility in earnest last year, discovering old land documents that outline hopes for a senior center at Merrymount Park.

Officials toured senior centers in several towns, including Marshfield, which spent $3.7 million on its 12,600-square-foot-facility, which opened in 2003.

Seniors have increasingly taken advantage of the center, with 1,700 of the town’s 4,500 seniors using the center by last year, according to its director, Carol Hamilton.

“If they built it, the seniors will use it,” Hamilton said of Quincy’s plans.

But Hamilton cautioned that the project was not one to be rushed into. She said $20,000 was spent on a feasibility study and preliminary designs and town meeting vote was needed to pay the overall cost.

“You don’t want to go to all that effort and not have it be right,” she said. “You only get one shot.”

The administration first presented its plan to the park board last month. The location was never open to discussion, according to Carter.

“I think the mayor wants to get it done and in the quickest time possible,” he said.

Tom Koch, who resigned as park commissioner in January to run for mayor against Phelan, called it “peculiar” that the chosen site for the senior center is one that bears his family name and was where he oversaw the park department for 12 years.

From a management standpoint, Koch said, relocating park department operations from the 80-acre park, the city’s largest, makes little sense.

“There are other options in the city; it all appears to me to be an election-year ploy out of the mayor’s goodie bag,” Koch said.

Asked if the Koch name would adorn a new senior center, Phelan declined to comment.

Clasby, whom Phelan reappointed director of elder services, said he fully supports building a senior center but said he was “somewhat concerned” by the lack of public discussion on its location and stressed his hope that approval from the senior community would be sought before any final decisions are made.

Phelan said the Koch complex is an ideal location. Renovating the buildings will keep the project cost lower; there is ample parking; and seniors will take advantage of nearby Pageant Field, where an athletic track is to be built, Phelan said. He said he plans to approach the MBTA about the possibility of adding a bus stop next to the park.

“Seniors who spent their lives here, retired here and remain active will have a place to call their own,” Phelan said. “This senior center will blossom.”

John P. Kelly may be reached at jkelly@ledger.com.