City leaders are advancing plans to construct a new facility for the Foley Senior Center, citing growing demand and limitations at the current site.

Foley City Council voted Monday, March 23, to seek proposals for the design of a new senior center building, marking the next step in a long-discussed effort to expand services for the city’s older population.

David Thompson, Foley’s executive director of leisure services, said officials had previously explored repurposing the current library building once a new library opens later in 2026. After evaluating that option, the city determined that renovating the library would be less practical than building a new facility tailored to senior services.

“We're looking at a brand new building,” Thompson told council members. “We're asking at this time to go out for proposals.”

Mayor Ralph Hellmich said the existing library, located next to City Hall, will instead be renovated for other municipal uses. He said converting the building into a senior center would require significant investment without delivering the same value as a purpose-built facility.

“We're so overloaded in our current Senior Center,” Hellmich said. “There is such a need. We thought that the library could work, but after looking at that building, we found that it would require a lot of excess money to change the use of that building. It's by far better to do a purpose-built building where you get better bang for your buck and then keep the old library for other uses.”

The current senior center on East Rose Avenue offers about 7,000 square feet of space, which city officials say no longer meets the needs of a growing senior population or the increasing demand for programs and services.

Hellmich said a potential location for the new facility is near the former National Guard armory behind City Hall. The armory is undergoing renovations and is expected to house new city offices and recreation facilities later this year, creating what officials envision as a centralized hub for municipal and community services.