METHUEN — Workers will soon complete a 91-apartment assisted-living facility that will house senior citizens and create about 60 jobs in the heart of downtown.
Methuen Village at Riverwalk Park will be the largest assisted-living facility in the city. Assisted living allows senior citizens to live independently in their own apartments but have access to 24-hour medical services like those in a nursing home.
The 64,000-square-foot, four-story building will have a restaurant, library, garden center and fitness center.
"It allows folks to live with dignity and live out the best possible life they can at that age," the developer of the property, David Spada, said after touring the site with officials and the media last week.
Spada and employees of the company who will run the facility said seniors can start moving in in March.
Methuen Village at Riverwalk Park is at 4 Gleason St., just off Broadway (Route 28). The site, formerly home to Shear Metals, borders the Spicket River and Spiggott Falls Riverwalk Park. Workers plan to build a path for walkers and a bridge leading from the building to the park.
Floodwater heavily damaged Spiggott Falls Riverwalk Park during the Mother's Day storm in 2006. Spada, a Methuen native, said his crews raised the elevation of the building by about 6 feet to keep it safe from flooding.
Studio apartments will start at $4,100 per month, said Seth Dudley, executive director of the facility. That includes meals, utilities — except cable and phone service — personal assistance and recreational programs. The rates for the upper echelon apartments have yet to be determined, Dudley said.
The building will create jobs for nurses, nursing assistants, food services workers and business office personnel. Boston-based Senior Living Residences will run the building.
Officials are heralding the site as a sign of the progress being made to improve the Broadway area.
"We look at it as a linchpin for further development downtown," said Mayor William Manzi.
Spada also plans to construct a two-story commercial and office building with a small retail component on a lot in front of Methuen Village, closer to Broadway. The building is intended as a medical office, but Spada doesn't have tenants yet. He plans to begin constructing the second building next spring and to have it completed by the end of 2009. The building could attract about 90 more jobs, Spada said.
In addition to the factory building, the property was previously home to a gas station. The land used to be contaminated with hazardous materials like oil and degreasers. Spada said he had the site cleaned to the point where it meets the highest environmental standard.
"We spent three and a half years and in excess of $500,000 to do a vigorous assessment, testing and remediation," he said.
