The Northern Wake Senior Center will transition to become a part of the Wake Forest town government on July 1, 2025. Assistant Town Manager Candace Davis outlined how that would happen as part of the presentations during the town board retreat at the Renaissance Centre Friday.
In 2023, Resources for Senior, a county-wide group providing the programming for senior centers in Wake County, approached Wake Forest’s town government, saying it would soon become unable to provide the programming and urged the town to take over the center, making it a part of town government. Town government leaders had already seen the need for a second senior center here.
Wake Forest’s town government and its residents have long supported the senior center, and that support strengthened in 2022 after the center opened after a major renovation only to be damaged by a lightning strike.
And it was really Wake Forest older residents, part of a lunch program, who set out in 1987 to raise money for such a center. They were able to buy a lot on East Holding Avenue with local donations and town, county and state grants in 1989. Nothing else happened until 1993 when Bertha Harris, a retired schoolteacher married to the treasurer of a local mill, donated $250,000 to build the center, which was completed in 1994. The senior citizen group then donated the land and the building to the town, which took over its maintenance. In 2014 a bond referendum provided $3.1 million to purchase additional property for the center.
Since 2023, town personnel have been planning to transition the center’s staff into town staff. That will be complete before July 1. And in 2024, Town Manager Kip Padgett had announced there is a need for a second senior center, given the number of senior citizens in town and the town’s designation as an AARP Age-Friendly Community.
The community partnerships will be maintained. The center now has 3,900 active embers, some of whom travel long distances to participate.
Also during the retreat:
** Brad West, Long Range Planning Manager, explained the town’s growth since 1940 (1,562 people) to 2022 (54,337); its demographics (65.6 percent white, 15.7 percent Hispanic/Latino, 7.8 percent Black); its land use; and other metrics.
** Glenn Carrozza with the Wake County Public Schools, described the schools in the Wake Forest area, which led to n hour-plus of discussion by the commissioners and mayor with frequent questions to Carrozza.
** Electric Utility Director Chris Terrell briefly described Wake Forest Power.
** Jennifer Herbert, the downtown development director, described the vacant buildings in the downtown, though she did not mention that the Holding Drug Store building at South White and Jones, has just been power-washed and work is currently taking place inside and on the roof. Herbert and two or three commissioners decided the building has been vacant since 2006. (Downtown merchants speculate that Sue Holding, the owner, has allowed her son, Tom, to take over the building.)
She described the ways the town could require changes to help find renters for the properties.
** Jennifer Currin, just named the director for the planning department, described the Municipal Service District in downtown Wake Forest, its tax rate and how it can be expanded as well as the sites available for future development.
It all ended just before 4:30 p.m., a long day.
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