Needham’s Center at The Heights will be temporarily closed for up to 10 days beginning Friday, June 26 for heavy demolition kickstarting a series of upgrades to increase accessibility, expand existing fitness programs and modernize kitchen facilities.
While the wrecking crew goes to work, CATH staff will remain available by phone and email. Daily construction progress and safety conditions will determine the center’s reopening date, which will be shared through town communication channels.
The entire project is expected to last through December 2026. Director of Health and Human Services Tim McDonald said the fitness room, relocated game room and accessible entrances will likely be done sooner than the kitchen, which Ken Sargent, senior project manager for Building Design and Construction, anticipates will take the full six months.
Sargent said the worst part of construction will be jackhammering the kitchen floor sometime in mid-July. The current cafe will be closed and used as the staging area for this phase of construction.
While upgrades are ongoing, many of the center’s services will continue with modified schedules and locations. A microwave and fridge will be moved into the multipurpose room to allow for coffee and a continental breakfast, and grab-and-go lunches will be prepared daily at the high school while the CATH kitchen is out of commission.
“We are going to have to rearrange some schedules, and in some cases we’re going to have to cancel some classes,” said McDonald at a June 22 meeting with the Permanent Public Building Committee. “We’re doing our best to reschedule the classes. Obviously with the fitness room not available, we are going to try to have more physical fitness type classes; but it is going to be tight for space, especially for the first three months when work is proceeding on the fitness room and then game room — there won’t be a ton of extra space during that period.”
“It will still be functional, but not comfortable,” said PPBC member George Kent.
“In the end it will be very good, but I think it’ll be a little bit squishy for a couple months,” McDonald responded.
These upgrades were born from two studies: the first, conducted in March 2020 in partnership with the Gerontology Institute at UMass Boston’s McCormack School; the second, a space utilization study funded by the May 2022 Town Meeting. This study, completed in late FY23, offered recommendations for best uses of the building as it moves into its second decade.
Recommendations ranged from projects like kitchen renovations (kept in the current proposal) to new basement rooms for card sharks. Based on feedback from the two studies, CATH patrons and professional staff, three needs rose to the top: a commercial-grade kitchen, expanded fitness room and handicap-accessible entrances. May 2025 Town Meeting approved $395,000 for initial design funds, and May 2026 Town Meeting approved $1.79 million to fund renovations.
The upgrades will help the center keep pace with growing interest from Needham seniors, expressed during this year’s Town Meeting.
“When you go there, take off the word ‘senior,’” said Lois Sockol. “You are energized. You are no longer this category of just, ‘Oh, these old people’ — no; it’s a world for people who have aged and they no longer are limited by that word ‘senior.’”
Finance Committee member Carol Smith-Fachetti said demand for CATH programs has consistently increased, emphasizing that the center hosts just over 200 events per month, and that user visits increased by 11% in 2024-25 with the upward trend continuing in 2026.
The renovations, however, are not unanimously popular among seniors who use the facility. Current plans have the game room moving upstairs into a space that would be created by combining two smaller program rooms into one larger room. McDonald said pool players in particular dislike the idea of a relocated room with a smaller square footage.
“Change is hard, and I don’t love the concept of winners and losers, because I do think that there is something that will benefit a lot of people in the renovation, but it’s also a little bit of a numbers game,” he said, referencing overcrowding in the existing fitness room.
McDonald added that increasing exercise options for Needham seniors is a top priority for the Council on Aging. “If those two things are in competition, the physical fitness and exercise for seniors kind of wins out in terms of what is a higher goal.”
“If you’ve ever gone up there and worked out in the fitness room — which I do a couple of days a week, even though it doesn’t look like it — the fact is that that room is mobbed,” noted Ed Cosgrove during Town Meeting. “We have to have a larger space for that.”
McDonald said the fitness room is one of the easier projects in the planned renovations and will likely be completed two to three months after construction begins.
Design plans for the new game room will accommodate simultaneous use of two pool tables, with buffers for players to approach shots with pool cues pulled all the way back. Arrangements have been made for pool games to continue uninterrupted at the VFW during construction.
Information about the project has been communicated via a Q&A session with Needham seniors and a bulletin board at the CATH describing project timelines.
“There definitely is sort of short-term pain for hoped-for long-term gain,” McDonald told the Observer. “I think our hope is that it will be well worth it to not have the fitness room for six months to then have a fitness room that is a lot bigger and a lot more usable for the next couple decades.”
Save as PDF