St. Regis senior center nears completion

ST. REGIS – After almost 30 years of renting other properties, the senior citizens of St. Regis will have a brand new, dedicated senior center to call home.

The building is expected to open later this month. The new senior center sits between the St. Regis Subway and the St. Regis Community Center off Highway 135. Construction has been handled by WRN Architect in Missoula.

According to Bill Nerison, owner of WRN Architect, the building is nearly complete. There are only a few final details to finish before the center is ready for use. These final items are minor, last minute things like repairs to any cracks in the walls, touch ups to the paint, patches to insulation and final work to ducts.

“[All that’s left are] very minor, last minute items before the building is considered officially complete,” said Nerison.

The building has a meeting hall, a full-service kitchen, conference room and clinic facilities. Nerison said the kitchen was designed to commercial standards with fire-suppressing systems, a commercial dishwasher, fridge and freezer. The kitchen is designed around food service use by the Meals on Wheels program and the center’s weekly dinner service.

Apart from the dinners, Mary Burrows, one of the organizers for the new center, said there would be game nights and various clinics available at the new center. The dinners and many of the game nights will be open to the community, however, most of the clinics will be restricted to seniors. The game nights and meals will be free to anyone who wants to join in.

According to Sharon Booth, president of the senior center, the seniors of St. Regis are excited for the new center and look forward to using it.

“We’re hoping to get more seniors out [of the house] now,” said Booth.

Funds for construction of the new building came through the Community Development Block Grant. Additional funds were also donated through the Department of Commerce, the Office of Rural Development and grants from Blackfoot, NorthWestern Energy and other local organizations.

Construction began in May of this year, and hoped to only take a few months. However, construction was delayed for various reasons. One such delay was the federal government shutdown delaying paperwork from the Office of Rural Development for one of the grants.

“There are a number of miscellaneous things that happen during a construction project [to delay things],” said Nerison.

The expectation is for the building to be ready to turn over to the new owners sometime in the next week or so. According to Booth, the senior center expects to move in starting Monday and Tuesday.

Thursday, December 16, the center will host its first meal in the new building. After the meal will be an auction to raise money for operation expenses of the new center.

In January, there is expected to be a grand opening and dedication of the building. At the time of the interview, specific details on the center’s scheduled events were unavailable.