Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge
The Oak Ridge Senior Center will move to the Oak Ridge Civic Center this month, officials said Thursday.
The Senior Center will be open at its current site on Emory Valley Road through Saturday, January 21, the City of Oak Ridge said in a Thursday press release.
The Senior Center will move to the Civic Center Recreation Building during the week of January 23 to January 28, and it will be closed to the public.
The Senior Center will re-open January 30 at the Civic Center, the city said.
The move to the Civic Center has been previously discussed as one part of a multi-part move. Also as part of that move, Anderson County General County General Sessions Court, Division II, would move from a private building on Bus Terminal Road to the county-owned building on Emory Valley Road that now houses the Senior Center. And Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Department offices housed at the Civic Center would move out of there, eventually to a city-owned building on Badger Road.
The city had announced in December that January was its target date for moving the Senior Center from the county-owned building on Emory Valley Road to the Civic Center, which is near the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and South Tulane Avenue in central Oak Ridge.
The city said in December that Senior Center activities will be held in a wing of the Civic Center near the indoor pool facility. Part of the area currently houses administrative offices for Recreation and Parks employees. Most of those employees will relocate to the Scarboro Center while the city-owned building on Badger Avenue is undergoing minor renovations, the city said last month. Once changes to that building, the former Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, are complete, staff will move into the Badger Avenue location permanently.
An architectural firm retained by the city is working on plans for a brand new Senior Center, the city said in December. The aim is to locate it on the same property with the Civic Center.
“The new Senior Center will be centrally located, giving area seniors much easier access to other city facilities as well as shopping and dining in Main Street Oak Ridge,†Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Director Jon Hetrick said. “The Recreation and Parks Department is working to merge the current Senior Center and Civic Center activity calendars so that we can still offer something for everyone in a single location. It’s our goal to manage this transition to the best of our ability, assess the needs of those who will be using the new Senior Center, make some minor accessibility improvements, and get it up and running as soon as possible.â€
The city said it plans to approve and release the details of the Senior Center design as soon as they’re complete. A possible timeline for the new center’s construction is estimated at 18 months.
The question of where to house the Senior Center has been under study for years. The Oak Ridge Senior Center has been located in the county-owned building on Emory Valley Road since 1999.
The Oak Ridge Senior Advisory Board recommended early last year that the Senior Center be located at the Civic Center and Alvin K. Bissell Park.
See previous story here.
See previous story on the proposed move of the Senior Center to the Civic Center here. See previous story on the proposed move of the Anderson County General Sessions Court to the county-owned building on Emory Valley Road, where the Senior Center is now, here.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
The current Oak Ridge Senior Center on Emory Valley Road. (Photo by City of Oak Ridge)
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Barbara Price says
So..the city of oak ridge once again insults the city senior citizens by giving 120,000.00 to the golf course that the average senior doesn’t use, but couldn’t purchase a free standing building for those that created this city to begin with !! Oh bravo to the Oak Ridge city council !!
Yes, definitely the seniors needed a safe CLEANER place, but not with less space for their chosen activities. Since it appears the old “Wild Cat Den”
is being vacated and SOLD, why couldn’t the seniors, who used to be there, have that space once again !!
No wonder the Clinton Senior Citizens is so successful !!
Oak Ridge needs to take lesson !!! You should be ashamed !
Tracy Powers says
“An architectural firm retained by the city is working on plans for a brand new Senior Center, the city said in December. The aim is to locate it on the same property with the Civic Center.” The possible time-line is 18 months. The city is trying to make room for everyone to have a place they can enjoy. One age group doesn’t and shouldn’t take precedence over another. No matter WHERE some of them used to work.
Your OR Senior Advisory Board are the ones that recommended the Civic Center. You should take your concerns and complaints up with them.
I see our General Sessions court will be moved to the old Senior Center on Emory Valley Rd. that, according to you, is not safe or clean. It must not be in that bad of shape since it’s now going to house the GS court.