April 1, 2026 by Jessica Mayer Neafsey
For the last five years, Hingham has spent a lot of time discussing a new Center for Active Living. Everyone agrees that the current Town Hall setup is not ideal: there are accessibility concerns, the roof leaks, there is limited space, and the infrastructure is old and inefficient. The town’s solution is a $30 million dedicated senior center on 5 acres at Bare Cove.
However, seniors are not the only residents who use Town Hall and need better space. Hingham Rec has arguably worse facilities than the current senior center, in the basement of Town Hall. As a mom who has struggled with a newborn and a stroller in those stairwells, I can attest that accessibility is challenging. These spaces currently host many of the same Rec activities that will be available in the new senior center, like dance, yoga, and mahjong. The new senior center will also have spaces that aren’t available elsewhere: two art rooms, a media room, a game room, a classroom, a cafe, and a large multipurpose room with a kitchen.
If we are going to invest this much in a new public building, we should be building a community center that is designed for everyone: seniors, adults, and families.
Peer towns have done exactly that. Pembroke opened its new community center in 2024. It hosts an extensive range of senior programming, but it also has new programs that would benefit us in Hingham: morning toddler time, mini and me yoga, after-school art classes, adult Pilates, teen mental health groups, paint nights, and more. Other Massachusetts towns, including Lexington, Newton, Randolph, Wayland, and Sudbury, have recently built community centers that combine senior and general recreation programming. Imagine connecting with other parents at the cafe while your child is at dance class, or learning mahjong with seniors while your teen takes a CPR course.
In 2023, when we voted to fund the initial design of the new Center for Active Living, the town told us that there was “interest in a multi-generational facility that could house both recreational programs for all ages as well as programming specifically for seniors” and that the town would use the appropriated funds to consider “possible models for Hingham’s Senior Center, and to explore the feasibility and costs of these alternatives.” This was reiterated in the 2025 warrant.
However, despite what we voted on and the $2.5 million in planning funding, the building committee never seriously evaluated a multigenerational model. It never determined what extra space, if any, would be required for a true community center. It never determined the cost of such a facility. It never, to my knowledge, asked peer towns how they managed scheduling between senior and Rec activities. It never publicly analyzed the long term adequacy of Hingham Rec’s indoor facilities, or studied unmet demand for youth and adult Rec programming. In short, the town’s general population was not a priority in this process.
This matters because opportunities like this do not come around often. If Hingham builds a senior-only facility now, we will be locking ourselves into that decision for a generation, while children, teens, parents, and other adults continue to make do with inadequate space, in a building that desperately needs renovation.
Many seniors have no problem sharing space. In the 2022 survey commissioned by the town, which surveyed residents aged 45+, just as many respondents wanted a new standalone community center building as wanted a new standalone senior center (17% each). Hingham seniors already recognize the benefits of collaborating with the next generation: teens and children already volunteer at the senior center, and we saw the benefits of connecting teens with seniors during these last winter snowstorms.
The proposed Center for Active Living is only scheduled to be open on weekdays from about 8:00 to 5:00. By expanding the center’s hours to evenings and weekends, as we do at the library, we could preserve a similar amount of senior programming while also expanding after-school and Rec activities. This would also let more seniors use the facility, especially younger seniors. 94% of Hingham residents aged 60-69 say that they rarely or never use the current senior center, and among that group, 47% say one reason is that they are still working.
Operationally, Pembroke, Lexington, and other community centers can balance senior and Rec activities, and the extra coordination seems worthwhile given the scale of this investment. If we need more space for this, the town has repeatedly stated that the marginal cost of extra space in the new building is small. Rec programs are generally self-supporting with user fees, so the additional operating cost would also be small. Current Rec programs often fill up instantly, demonstrating that there is significant demand.
I’ve yet to receive a good answer for why the town never determined the cost of a combined community center. When I asked the building committee directly at the final Advisory Committee meeting, I was told that it was a nice idea, but it’s only feasible in towns that are smaller than Hingham. That claim is hard to square with places like Randolph, Lexington, and Newton. I was previously told it had to do with state funding, but no planned funding seems to preclude mixed use. I was also told it was because there would be operational challenges, but never was told what makes Hingham different from peer towns with multigenerational centers.
As we approach Town Meeting and a possible ballot vote, I hope Hingham voters will ask a simple question: for this level of public investment, are we building the best possible space for the whole community?
Seniors absolutely deserve a modern, accessible, welcoming place. But this is also a rare chance to create the indoor Rec space Hingham has been missing for years. We can do better.