SUNDERLAND — The South County Senior Center may be one step closer to finally securing a new home for its members.
The Senior Center Board of Oversight has agreed to look into the Sinauer Associates/Oxford University Press building at 23 Plumtree Road as a potential new home for the center, which has been without a permanent location since moving into the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in South Deerfield in 2021.
With a growing membership — 126 new members have joined this year alone and 353 people have attended the center at least once — Senior Center Director Jennifer Remillard said a new, larger space would better serve the seniors of Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately.
“[Those numbers] show you the need for having a larger facility that can accommodate all the events, programs and activities that we have,” Remillard said. “When we had the needs assessment conducted through UMass, one of the top concerns of all participants was having a space that is friendly, useable and in one central location.”
The Plumtree Road building is approximately 12,000 square feet. It sits on a nearly 3.5-acre lot that last sold for $1 million in 2017. With such a large building, Remillard said the Senior Center would only need a portion of it and then Sunderland, which would buy the property, could have some office space there.
Sunderland Selectboard member Dan Murphy, who also serves on the Senior Center Board of Oversight, said his board has only just started discussing the prospect of buying the building, but that it seems like a good opportunity. He said his board will discuss the matter with Town Administrator Geoff Kravitz to review Sunderland’s needs and how the space could be used.
Over the years, Senior Center patrons have been vocal about the need for a permanent home. The center used to be located in the 1888 Building on North Main Street in South Deerfield, but it closed in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2021, the discovery of mold and asbestos led to the center leaving the site entirely.
Seniors briefly gathered at a tent outside the 1888 Building in 2021, until late fall when the Senior Center moved into the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church. Then, in 2022, the center began leasing an additional administrative space in Sunderland. The three towns have been examining long-term options for the center — the South Deerfield Congregational Church has been at the top of the list — but progress has been slow.
The Plumtree Road location, Remillard said, provides one of the best opportunities the three towns have seen in years.
“Being centrally located now, not in five years, would definitely alleviate a lot of issues logistics-wise, and it would also make the seniors feel like they matter,” Remillard said, adding that the Senior Center’s two leases expire in April and May. The center pays $3,600 a month to rent its two current locations.
Deerfield Selectboard member Trevor McDaniel said “it’s rare to find a building in this shape.” Whately Selectboard member and Senior Center Board of Oversight Chair Joyce Palmer-Fortune said the towns may end up paying more than $3,600 per month with the Plumtree Road building, but that money would be worth it if it helps the Senior Center grow.
“We have to decide what do we value here. We are going to have to expect that it is going to cost us some money,” Palmer-Fortune said. “If we have to pay a little more money for it, it’s going to be money well-spent and well-invested in our communities.”
Also showing support for the move at last week’s Senior Center Board of Oversight meeting were Deerfield Council on Aging members Marie St. Peters, Fran York and Sharyn Paciorek, who is also president of South County TRIAD, a partnership of law enforcement, community organizers and seniors.
There were some concerns about the distance of the building from the current Senior Center — roughly 3 miles from the Sunderland administrative building — but the site is easily accessible off Route 116.
“The extra distance is the only downside … but these other advantages really outweigh the one disadvantage,” Palmer-Fortune said. “We want to move forward and want to find the next steps.”
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.