Ground broke on senior citizen center
JACKSON, Tenn. – A new center will be built in Jackson for all senior citizens to enjoy.
The City of Jackson held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new senior center at Westwood Gardens on Thursday.
This will be the first senior citizen center in the area in nearly 30 years.
“You know, it’s an exciting day. Feels like it’s been a long day coming, but we’ve been getting a lot of work done with our Aging Commission on breaking ground in our new senior center. And so we know that this provides a quality of life aspect, saves lives. Studies show that there’s immeasurable benefits of senior centers, and so we’re excited to start this process and [are] looking forward to [having] the construction going on and getting the building built,” said Jackson Mayor Scott Conger.
Mrs. Virginia Conger, Scott Conger’s grandmother, is responsible for obtaining the land located in west Jackson.
“This land is a part of a larger development piece. When the Aging Commission decided they were looking for a central location and realized that this was still available, they asked my grandmother to go out and try to get it. So she wrote a letter to Mr. Anderson, who owned the property. In the meantime, there was a sale of the property so the new owner, Jason Leonard, also agreed to donate this piece of their property so we can build the senior center on it,” Scott Conger said.
Marie Law, the chairman of the Commission on Aging, said this is a great investment for the senior citizen community. This is a project four years in the making.
“It’s just a joy to be with people our own age and can talk about things that we know about, and the fact that we’ve had COVID to interfere with our life for so long and a lot of us had been inside looking at four walls, now we’re just cutting loose and having a good time,” Law said.
The senior center will be conveniently located in the center of the city. It will be walkable and close to bus routes.
“This is something just for seniors. We don’t have to share. We can do what we want to, you know, when we want to. And it’s nice of the community center to share, but you know, we might like to do things on Monday, Wednesday, Friday at different times. So we, you know, we share, but it’ll be nice to have our own center so we can do our own thing,” Law said.
The city council approved the contract for the building last month, and construction will start when the design of the building is complete.
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