GREENFIELD — When Mayor William Martin was elected, John Zon would come into his office and remind him of the importance of a new senior center in the downtown. That reminder was always on the mayor’s mind.
“(Martin) would always say to me, ‘When you see your father, tell him I’m working on that senior center,’” John’s son, David Zon said.
On Monday morning, under gray skies, the town broke ground on a project 20 years in the making — a senior center that will be named after the late John Zon.
“He wouldn’t have believed this,” David Zon said of his father. “This is like a cherry on the cake. He wouldn’t have believed of a ground-up kind of thing.”
Martin and Zon spoke to the crowd of public officials and local residents involved with the project about what it means to them to have a new senior center, which will be at the site of the former David Street school administration building.
“For us older people, we need something new,” Martin said to the crowd. “This building now will satisfy that need for the changing times.”
The mayor noted that the project is 100 percent taxpayer funded, explaining it as a true community center in that sense. The projected was OK’d for $4.2 million in April 2016.
“This is a great day for Greenfield and another great example of Greenfield being willing to reinvest in itself,” said state Rep. Paul Mark, D-Peru.
Mark, who been an active supporter of the project, said that he has pushed for additional money from the state and although to date it has fallen through, he still hopes that some of the furnishings can be paid for by the state.
The work is anticipated to be substantially completed by the summer of 2018 by general contractor Forish Construction and Dietz and Associates Architects.
“This was one of the things that he was working on and this might’ve been the one thing that he didn’t get to, so this means a lot,” Zon said.
Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264