SOUTH DEERFIELD — The South County Senior Center will determine if the former South Deerfield Congregational Church has the potential to be its long-term home with a feasibility study funded by a $75,000 grant.
The Efficiency and Regionalization grant, which is provided by the state’s Community Compact Cabinet, will fund a feasibility study to determine if the church on North Main Street could serve as a senior center, while also identifying the affordability of any required improvements or mitigation measures.
Deerfield Planning Board member and Connecting Community Initiative Chair Denise Mason, who took the lead on applying for the grant, said the study will help guide future decisions regarding a home for the South County Senior Center, which has not had a permanent home since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
She emphasized the study is the first step of this process and it may even find that the church is not a suitable place for the Senior Center to move to. If the building is unsuitable for use, Mason said the town will move to renovate the building on its own.
“Nothing is set in stone at this point,” Mason noted. “We’re going to go ahead and repair the church regardless. Eventually it can be used as a community center, too. It’s a win-win situation no matter what we do.”
Mason said the South Deerfield Congregational Church has some minor structural issues in general and its steeple needs to be repaired, but those are not the main concern for the Senior Center. The main concern is remediating some asbestos and mold in the building, which also forced the closure of the South County Senior Center’s former home right next door.
“We’ll see what the feasibility study says and we’ll forward from there,” she said.
The initial grant application requested $200,000 — similar to the regionalization grants funding both the Bernardston-Leyden and Buckland-Shelburne shared-policing agreements — to provide money for both the study and remediation of the building, but Mason said the South County Senior Center wasn’t eligible for the full amount because it is already an established regional service. Once the feasibility study is finished, however, the Senior Center can apply for a different grant to fund those repairs.
“If, after the study determines the facility can serve as the central, consolidated location, then there’s another possible grant that could fund the repairs,” Mason explained. “We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now.”
Talks around the future of the South County Senior Center have been brewing since it moved into the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in South Deerfield on a temporary basis last year, before adding an administrative space in Sunderland this fall. The combined rent of those two buildings adds up to $3,000 per month, which Deerfield Selectboard Chair and Senior Center Board of Oversight member Trevor McDaniel said in November is unsustainable for years on end.
Deerfield Town Administrator Kayce Warren said there is no concrete timeline moving forward because the South County Senior Center is waiting on documents and the Board of Oversight is also involved because it is a collaborative effort of all three towns. Additionally, a feasibility study will be informed by a needs assessment that was presented to the community in May.
“How we move forward depends on using the needs assessment to then build a feasibility assessment,” Warren explained. “(The Board of Oversight) needs to be involved with that.”
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.