Jan. 18—SANTA CRUZ — As the clock approached noon, people trickled into the Abedon Lopez Senior Center in ones and twos for lunch.

The center serves 20 to 40 lunchtime guests each weekday and operates a Meals on Wheels food-delivery program for seniors confined to their homes. It also hosts classes in art forms such as tinwork, ceramics and weaving, and offers exercise sessions.

Two women working in a small side room late Wednesday morning stamped intricate designs into sheets of tin. Eileen Carter, visiting from Nambé, was making a tin frame.

As senior centers go, “this beats it all,” said Clyde Vigil, who has frequented the facility for years. He settled into a seat at the notoriously fun-loving “men’s table.”

The center is a popular spot for seniors in northern Santa Fe County. Still, the aging building needs an overhaul, and the county finally has funds to tackle the project after years of applying for grants, said Curt Temple, the projects section manager for the Public Works Department.

County leaders plan to demolish the center as soon as March and build a new one using $1.5 million of its own funds and a combination of grants, including $2 million it accepted last week from the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department. The money had been allocated during the 2022 legislative session.

Representatives with the Aging and Long-Term Services Department did not respond to a call requesting comment.

The Abedon Lopez Senior Center was built in 1987 and named in honor of Abedon Lopez Sr. — a onetime county commissioner, probate judge and lifelong Santa Cruz resident and community volunteer — in 1993, months before Lopez’s death.

Upgrading the 37-year-old building rather than razing it and starting over “would have just cost way too much,” Temple said, adding the HVAC system is old, and the kitchen, offices and bathrooms are too small.

The proposed new building, a 4,520-square foot structure, will cost an estimated $4 million. It will have a larger kitchen and pantry, separate dining and activity rooms and accessible bathrooms.

The county already has a contractor lined up for demolition of the old building and will soon seek bids for construction of the new one. The project’s timeline is contingent on when a contractor can begin construction, which is expected to take “just under a year,” Temple said.

“We want it to be seamless because we don’t want this place shut down forever,” he said.

During the construction period, most services at Abedon Lopez will move to the Benny J. Chavez Community Center in Chimayó, about eight miles away, Temple said.

Carter and Shirley Roybal of El Rancho, who was doing tinwork with her, said they’re happy with the Abedon Lopez center as it is.

“But I guess it’s going to be bigger and better,” Roybal said.

She learned tinwork through a friend at the center. “In my old age, I decided to become an artist, and I have loved it. I have literally loved it,” Roybal said.

Carter paused her work on the tin frame to pull up pictures on her phone of a ceramic goose and ducklings she also made at the center.

“When somebody else comes in, then we teach them, so it’s just really nice,” she said. “We have lots of fun here.”

Josie Atilano, who has been the center’s activity coordinator for over a decade, looks forward to the new building. The existing one doesn’t meet accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act, she noted. But she acknowledged the change will be hard on some seniors.

“Those guys like to sit and think that they can solve the world’s problems,” she said with a smile, waving a hand toward the men’s table. “This is their home. This is where they love to socialize.”

“I’m just worried — what’s going to happen to us?” said Vigil, who lives down the street. “… I look forward to meeting all these people every day.”

He thinks the building is adequate.

Joe Rodriguez, enjoying his lunch across from Vigil, disagreed: “We need a new building,” he said.

“This part of Santa Fe County is the forgotten part,” he said. “We need to use the money while we have it.”