New lockers are in place at the Golf Club Lane senior center thanks to recent senior group leader meetings with Village Administrator Robert Schoelle and Kevin Ocker, chair of the Board of Commissioners of Cultural and Recreational Affairs.

Additional improvements will continue in the coming weeks, including a new floor and a fresh coat of paint.

"A little logistical exchange of the contents, a smattering of paint, a new floor and presto a new locker room will be created. It's a small start but we are willing to inch along," a recent Retired Men's Club column, which appears weekly in Garden City Life, stated.

Several senior group leaders have been meeting regularly with village officials to discuss ways to improve the facility, a center in which senior residents are very "content" and "comfortable" using.

In a letter to Mayor Peter Bee, eight senior group leaders, including Joseph Leto, GC Retired Men's Club president, requested the village retain the Golf Club Lane facility for the use of its current users, including members of the Grandmothers Club, the Garden City Women's Club, Senior Homemakers Bridge Club and more.

Further, they requested minor improvements to the facility with a better maintenance program, to include a professional maintenance company to evaluate and service the heating/cooling plant. They hope a "suitable kitchen" could be installed to accommodate coffee/tea services and, if plausible, an expansion of the building to include space for larger indoor meetings, including sectional meeting areas to allow for different groups to use the facility at the same time.

"This is a very valuable property with a great potential to ease some of the pressure to accommodate senior groups in the St. Paul's Main Building," they wrote.

The senior group leaders first met with Ocker and Schoelle back in February to discuss their concerns regarding the proposed plan to renovate the St. Paul's Main Building. "It was noted that space for a 'senior center' is included in the planning stage of this project," they wrote in their letter to Mayor Bee.

As representatives of senior groups using the Golf Club Lane facility, they added that a very "important consideration" is the difficulty senior members would have trying to maneuver the traffic at the corner of Rockaway and Stewart Avenues, particularly when the middle school dismisses. "It will be chaotic. Also, without a huge handicapped parking area, most of our seniors would not be able to utilize a senior center located anywhere in the St. Paul's area," they stated.

According to Ocker, there are no specific plans for a building expansion at this time. "We have not requested a building expansion in this upcoming budget," Ocker said, "so it's not part of our capital improvement plan yet."

Ocker added that it's premature to assume that an expansion of the building will in fact be approved next year but he's sure it will be a new project in the overall capital request, subject to board of trustees approval.

"Seniors like the setting at Golf Club Lane and the property seems to allow for a one-level expansion of the building as well as enhancing the outdoor areas around the building," Ocker added. "If a project is approved it will be a major construction project and will not be done in house."

Senior group leaders were slated to meet again with village officials April 16.