Watertown Senior Center A Building Committee has been appointed to oversee the design and construction of a new Watertown Senior Center. The current one is located on Marshall Street.
A new Senior Center is one of the potential projects on the horizon for the City of Watertown, and City Manager George Proakis recently appointed members of a committee to oversee the project.
The Senior Center, located at 31 Marshall St., opened in 1993 as the first City-run facility dedicated to older adults in Watertown.
The building sits next to the Phillips Building, which is used as the central offices for the Watertown Public Schools. For the past few years, a new Senior Center has been at or near the top of projects the City plans to take on after the construction of the new Watertown High School. Others include a new East End Fire Station, redeveloping the former Sterritt Lumber site on Waltham Street, and finding a staging area for the Department of Public Works. The City is also looking at constructing a new middle school.
What the new Senior Center will look like, what features it will have, and even where it is located have not been determined. If a new location is selected, one alternative is the former Sterritt Lumber site, purchased by the City in March 2025.
On Aug. 11, Proakis told the City Council that he appointed a Senior Center Building Committee.
“Much like we have a School Building Committee, setting up a Senior Center Building Committee is an important step to the process of determining the future of the Senior Center and where we can go on the Senior Center project,” Proakis said.
The Senior Center Building Committee members are: Phyllis Perrone from the Council on Aging; Joy Mazzola, a regular at visitor and volunteer at the Senior Center; Senior Center Director Lydia McCoy; Denise Maroney, the City’s Director of Public Buildings; the Deputy City Manager Emily Monea, and three City Councilors: Mark Sideris (President), Tony Palumba, and Lisa Feltner.
“I appreciate having all of them together, and appreciate the chance to work with the Council President and staff to pull this together to get that Committee appointed to get a chance to work on that space,” Proakis said.
The Committee will soon get involved in the project, Proakis said. The City has alread requested bids for an architect to work on the Senior Center Project.
“The (Building) Committee is going to pick an architect who is able to do program analysis and site selection process, to determine what program and where things will come together, and how that will work,” Proakis said.
City staff did an initial review of the architects that submitted bids, Proakis said, and the firms picked to move forward in the process will go before the new committee.
“The Senior Center Committee will be meeting, and one of their first steps will be interviewing the finalists to select the architect that’s going to work with the Senior Center Building Committee on this process,” Proakis said.