City Plans New Senior Center

Cambridge will build a new four story senior center which will offer a dazzling array of services to the city's older residents--although some residents have reservations about the final design.

The new facility, which is scheduled to open in 1994, will make Cambridge the first city in the nation to have a one-stop senior center.

The center will serve approximately 33 to 60 percent of the 15,000 senior citizens in Cambridge. Designers are expecting 200 to 300 seniors to use the facility on a daily basis,

About 50 senior citizens attended a City Council hearing on the new building last Monday, voicing concerns that the center will be shared with the election commission and other city agencies.

As one audience member held a sign reading "Senior centers for seniors," Kenneth Holmes, president of the Council on Aging told the council, "Don't pinch pennies on senior citizens."

City councillors too voiced concerns about the proposed plans, although many of their criticisms focused on the building design. Many of them said they feared there was a dearth of natural light in the building.

The architect working on the project, Ann C. Borst of DiNisco, Kretsch and Associates, tried to counter the concerns of the residents and councillors.

Borst said her firm was doing the best it could to work with the available space to make it as suitable as possible.

She also said that 5,000 square feet will be added to the building already purchased by the city. That additional space will make up for the room taken by Election Commission.

The city purchased the new facility, a four story building at 806 Mass Ave., for $1.6 million.

Administrators are planning $2.8 million of renovations to the site, according to Executive Director of the Cambridge Council of Aging Kathie Filsinger.

"I don't know of any center with the scale that we are talking about," she said,

The center will house senior social programs, office space and a Cambridge Hospital geriatric clinic.

Filsinger said the center will be open to all Cambridge citizens over 50, is principally for those 60 and over.

The special services director at the Council, Donna Johnson, said specific activities has not been selected yet.

"Planning is in the stages where seniors tell us "Yes this is what we want,'" Johnson said.

Some activities that have been suggested include dances, senior care and continuing education classes taught through local universities. Harvard has not yet been asked to offer courses.

Alice Raulinitis, 67, who wrote the first proposal for the senior center in 1988, said that she initiated the idea because of what she heard from her walking group.

"I heard people say, 'Why don't we have a center?' and so I said 'stop talking about it and let's do something.'" she said in an interview yesterday.

Raulinitis' original plan called for a center that would coordinate senior social affairs.

"What I put in the first [proposal] didn't have half of what is really needed," Raulinitis said. "It just blew up to be a much bigger thing than I imagined."

In an effort to establish what was needed at the center, Raulinitis visited other centers in cities around Cambridge.

Charlotte R. Kanouse, a 69 year-old resident of Cambridge, said she believes facilities today are inadequate and the change will be good.

"Just too many people show up," said Kanouse in reference to the programs at the senior center on 2050 Mass Ave. "All my friends are very excited about the new center." she added.