Red Hook Senior Center to Reopen by End of Summer, by Nathan Weiser

Construction of Red Hook’s new senior center will be complete by late July, according to the New York City Housing Authority and project supervisors.

The senior citizens of Red Hook have not had a dedicated senior center since Hurricane Sandy demolished the old one in 2012. The seniors currently use space in the basement of the Miccio Center on 9th Street, close to Hamilton Avenue. The new senior center building will be immediately adjacent to the current location.

The New York City Housing Authority [NYCHA]’s Sandy Community Outreach held a construction update meeting for the seniors of Red Hook in the beginning of May, according to Zodot Negron, NYCHA’s deputy press secretary for the New York City Housing Authority.

“The Sandy outreach team has met with local seniors six times in 2016 to make sure that they are aware of the work that is going on and to address any concerns,” Negron said.

The NYCHA project supervisor managing the contractors for the senior center said that Jemco Contracting Corp began the process back in October but could not start construction until the beginning of December because they found unexpected leaks in the walls.

In 2014, NYCHA promised that that project would be completed by December 2015.

“With any existing construction, we don’t know what we are going to run into once we start opening up walls, and opening up floors and starting the demolition,” the project supervisor said at the construction site. “Once we opened up the walls we found that there was going to be a little more work that needed to be done. So, of course, if there is more work that increases the schedule.”

The supervisor added that they are completely gutting the building. The building had been closed for three years before the work on the new senior center began.

When the new center is finished it will have cost $2.9 million, according to Negron, and will look nothing like the original.

“It will have an exercise room, it will have a billiards room, it will have a large multi-purpose room where they can have functions like playing bingo like they do in the Miccio Center,” the supervisor said. “They will also be served breakfast and lunch, will have a sewing room and a computer resource center.”

The project supervisor added that the ceiling will practically be brand new when they finish.

When he was asked if the construction would be finished between June and July, the project supervisor agreed with that timeline. “Now that we have all of the answers that we need, construction will go on non-stop,” he said.

The project supervisor doesn’t know exactly when the building will be open to the seniors because they are still trying to figure out some logistics. However, according to both Negron and the supervisor, the Red Hook seniors will be able to utilize the brand new building at some point during the summer.