“Obviously (the building) is closed,” center Director Elise Bertucci said in a phone interview Tuesday, “but we are working hard to make sure all of the needs of our clients are met. We are hoping that activities will only be curtailed in the short run.”

Ishpeming’s interim City Manager Steve Snowaert said the structure is no longer open to the public, after Marquette County Building Codes Official/Construction Codes Manager Paul Knox placed the red tag in the window declaring it unsafe.

“We are allowing their employees in there to basically pack up some things,” Snowaert said. “But they have to be escorted in there by a city employee. They are in there for a purpose, they can’t conduct any business and we have a public works employee in there with them while they are packing.”

Snowaert said Knox informed the city of code violations on Sept. 4. The Ishpeming Area Commission on the Aging appealed Knox’s ruling to the Marquette County Building Codes Board of Appeals. That board upheld Knox’s official finding on Oct. 10.

The Senior Center at 324 S. Pine Street is pictured. Center director Elise Bertucci said the facility could possibly relocate to the first floor of Phelps Square. (Journal photo by Justin Marietti)

The Ishpeming City Council voted to “comply with the the orders” of the county code inspector to close the center on Sept. 10.

In his Sept. 4 report, Knox notes blocked aisles and passageways, warped walking surfaces that “do not provide adequate means of egress”; the concrete floor is “displaced causing trip hazards throughout the structure” and “creating trip hazards in egress path; interior bearing wall carrying floor system of story above compromised; connection beams dislodges and partially detached; vertical and horizontal cracks evident in wall coverings indicating failure of interior partition walls.”

Bertucci said the commission is in talks with the city to lease a temporary location, which has been tentatively identified as a portion of the ground floor of the Phelps Square apartment complex.

The city owns the building, which it rents to the commission on aging for $1 per year, and has been working with the organization on alternative locations for its operations for several months, Snowaert said.

Relocating, even temporarily to a facility where the commission would pay rent, is a several-step process, Snowaert said.

“We have a few moving parts here,” he said. “Approval from the city council and approval from the commission on aging, the lease, any renovations that may need to be done” will all need to be considered.

He said while the main goal in the short-term is to find a location that will “get the Ishpeming Senior Center back up and running,” the long-term goal is obtaining a grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to build a new facility.

In August, the council adopted a resolution and approved submission of the $2.2 million grant application to the MEDC, which administers the Community Development Block Grant program, for funding to demolish the current senior center and build a new multi-purpose facility at 121 Greenwood St.

“Our biggest concern is being accessible to our clients,” Bertucci said. “Our caseworkers and homemakers are making contact as best they can and we are hoping that everything just works. The caseworkers have all the client forms and forms and applications for services with them.”

Bertucci is asking for patience from the community in the short term.

“It’s sort of hard for me to work out the communication part of it because we are not necessarily going to be in here every day to check voicemail,” Bertucci said. “But we are committed to make it work for our clients and we are asking that people please bear with us until the phones get moved.”

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242.