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SARATOGA SPRINGS — After more than 40 years of setting up shop on Williams Street, the Saratoga Senior Center this week began its physical relocation into the future: one mile southwest and to its new home adjacent to the Saratoga Regional YMCA at 290 West Avenue.
“Shut down, packed up, and moving over here,” executive director Lois Celeste explained to hundreds of visitors attending the center’s first event staged at its new location. The senior expo was held July 20 and featured a variety of speakers, presentations and more than 40 community vendors.
The new site hosts multiple classrooms, a kitchen and dining room, a chair-and-table area for card games, an art room, exercise room, employee offices, and an education center.
The Meeting Room will host gatherings of the Alzheimer’s Association as well as various medical insurance organizations, and the Game Room will be fitted with computer stations, a TV, ping-pong tables and a pair of pool tables.
“We actually have a sound system and a projector – we’re coming into the next century here,” said Celeste, flanked by the new-look gleam of marble and glass.
The new location boasts plentiful parking and a quartet of columns that frame the entryway that lead to a main reception area inside. A physical therapist will be on-site five days of the week. There is still some work to be done prior to the new center’s opening.
“We don’t know how long it is going to take to set up operations, but our goal is to have a soft opening with classes by the first or second of August,” Celeste said. “It will be a kind of a one-stop shop.”
The non-profit, non-residential community center welcomes adults aged 50 and over. Cost is $35 a year to participate in programs, trips and social activities tailored to adults and seniors.
The Center was founded in 1955, purchased its own building at 162 Circular St. five years later and in 1979 relocated to a larger facility at 5 Williams St. The Williams Street venue that is being vacated is owned by the city of Saratoga Springs.
The city last year announced plans to use the location when empty to site a 24/7 permanent homeless shelter. Earlier this year those plans were quashed, however, after the proposal met with a backlash from some community members and parents of students of the nearby Saratoga Central Catholic School. Plans for the future of the city-owned property are not currently known.
