LEWISTON — Councilors on Tuesday will review a recommendation to move the city’s senior citizen programs out of the Multi-Purpose Center and into the Memorial Armory on Central Avenue.

That’s the current staff recommendation, according to a memo in the council’s agenda packet. 

It calls for increasing parking at the armory to make room for seniors and for $380,000 of renovations that would include building an elevator and a new entrance for seniors.

Mayor Robert Macdonald, a member of one of the senior groups that uses the center, said he and city staff visited the facility last week and met with some of the seniors.

“We explained some of what would need to be done and we explained some of the plans and it sounded like they might accept it,” Macdonald said. “It’s a council decision, so it isn’t up to me. But the ones I talked to sounded happy about it.”

The meeting, a workshop discussion, is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. in Lewiston City Hall.

School officials in September said that expected growth in the number of elementary school students citywide calls for some expansion. They’ve recommended taking over the entire Birch Street Multi-Purpose Center building as a new, bigger Longley School. 

The Longley School and the Multi-Purpose Center currently share the building. Multi-Purpose Center programs include adult education classes and meeting space for the city’s senior citizen groups.

The previous City Council considered purchasing the Knights of Columbus building at 150 East Ave. and making it the new center for seniors programs.

That could require the city to buy the building from the Knights of Columbus. Combined with renovation work on the building, it could push the cost to $600,000.

[email protected]