County mulls renting out senior center

A committee has formed to investigate how the empty portion of the Golden Hour Senior Center building should be used.

Commissioner Don Van Matre said meetings have taken place involving the senior center’s board and representatives from the City of Green River regarding empty space in the center’s building. Golden Hour only takes up about half of the building’s total available space. Originally built as Roosevelt Elementary School, the county became the building’s owner after purchasing it from the city. The building housed offices for some county agencies before they moved to other locations. While those organizations have left, the county still pays for utilities and maintenance needed throughout the building.

Garry McLean, the county’s human resources director, said much of the discussion regarding both the empty Golden Hour space, as well as space in the former juvenile probation building on Flaming Gorge Way, is preliminary.

The former juvenile probation building will soon be christened the Sweetwater County Community Services Building and has already. McLean believes renting the Golden Hour building could be a means of helping the senior center recover some of the funding cut from its budget.

According to both Van Matre and McLean, Southwest Counseling Services seeks new office space in Green River, with McLean saying office space at either location could benefit the counseling center. Van Matre said there has been some interest in using some of the Golden Hour space as a daycare as well, mirroring a daycare set up at the Young at Heart Senior Center in Rock Springs.

“We’re just looking for things to make it better,” Van Matre said.

Green River Mayor Pete Rust said during the initial discussion, the costs involved with maintaining the Golden Hour building were brought up, which cause him to believe the county may not want to keep ownership of the building. Costing the county more than $100,000 a year in utilities and maintenance, Rust said the city isn’t in the position to take on ownership of the building. While the county has dealt with revenue declines for the last year, the municipal government in Green River has operated under continually declining revenues for much longer.

“Bottom line, it’s not going to happen,” Rust said.