The City of Livonia knew that it wanted to upgrade its senior center. "We had a 60-plus-year-old converted church that served as our existing senior center," said Ted Davis, Superintendent of the City of Livonia Parks & Recreation department. 

When the City was developing its Livonia Vision 21 Master Plan, one of its first priorities would be moving the senior center out of the old church and attaching it to the Jack E. Kirskey Recreation Center, which boasted an indoor track, pool, and fitness area. The plan was adopted by Livonia City Council in 2018. 

Then 2020 hit. The reality of the post-Covid world meant that the smaller spaces of the Kirksey Center would no longer work for an aging population. "We began looking at how we would build the next generation's senior center," says Davis. 

The result of that process is the new and improved Livonia Senior Wellness Center and Jack E. Kirksey Recreation Center. It is the City of Livonia's entry for the 2026 Community Excellence Award. 

The City began with focus groups and surveys to refine its understanding of what the community wanted. "Our goal there was to not just survey existing users, but future users," says Davis. No one is born a senior, after all. 

With designs from the architecture firm Hubbell, Roth & Clark, and the construction firm PCIDailey, the City of Livonia broke ground in June 2024. 

The entire project—which consisted of expansions, additions and renovations to the Kirksey Center, with the senior center portion of the building having its own entrance, driveway, and parking lot—cost approximately $27.5 million. Congresswomen Haley Stevens and Rashida Tlaib were able to secure $3 million and $1.25 million for the project, respectively. Because the center would be a regional community asset and not just a Livonia one, Wayne County invested $8 million. Livonia's state legislators also came together to secure $4.5 million from the State of Michigan. 

Adaptability was a focus. "I don't know what senior programming is going to look like in 10 or 20 or even two years from now, really," says Davis. "We weren't recreating the wheel by building a pool or walking track or a fitness area—we attached on to all that to improve access for our seniors." 

"As the mayor [Maureen Miller Brosnan] always says, 'future-proofing and fiercely flexible," he adds. 

The rooms in the new senior center have movable walls, configurable to different setups. "We have some incredibly large fitness classes, over 60 people," says City of Livonia Communications Director Kristin Houchins. "We were looking and going, 'Okay, we need to have this amount-plus, to combat future need.'" 

Residents had their own requests. Refrigerators and sinks in every room. Very large, accessible elevators for the two-story facility. A fireplace, like they had in the old church building. "I remember hearing they loved the front canopy, in their drop-off and pick-up area," says Davis. "So, we literally recreated that in the new building." 

Then there's the Commons, a large dining space with an attached kitchen, designed in cooperation with Wayne County to assist with Meals on Wheels programming and their popular congregate meals. The Commons features a giant, backlit map of the city of Livonia on one wall. "It's one of those 'wow' rooms," says Davis. 

The second floor features a lounge area with pool tables and a TV. "It has great natural lighting in there," says Davis. "That's one of those areas where, when we were setting it up, we go, 'I wonder what the next use of this room is going to be.'" 

"I'll be a senior in 10 years. I don't know if I want pool tables, but I might want video games." 

One of the conference rooms is branded the Bentley Room, named after the first high school in Livonia, which closed in 1984 and was demolished in 2000—to make way for the Kirksey Recreation Center. "My dad was a Bentley Bulldog," says Davis. "If you walk the streets of Livonia, chances are you're going to run into one." The Bentley Room features a mural with images of the old school. "The school district was kind enough to send an incredibly large file of all the pictures they had of Bentley—students, classrooms, football teams, cheerleaders, everything." 

A ribbon-cutting for the Livonia Senior Wellness Center and Jack E. Kirksey Recreation Center was held in November of last year. One hundred and fifty people turned out. "It has such a 'wow' factor," says Davis. "When you're going from a 1960s church that never quite fit what they were trying to do, with lower ceilings and narrow hallways and smaller spaces, and then you walk into a lobby that's two stories high; flooded with natural light—it was a bit of sensory overload." 

The center has proven popular with Livonia residents and beyond. The City is tracking an approximately 30% increase in traffic. Nearby communities have reached out to learn more about Livonia's process. 

Davis is particularly proud of the adaptive reuse aspect of the new and improved center. "We wanted our seniors to feel it was a separate space for them. But we've attached it onto a community center, which allowed us to be great stewards of public funds by not rebuilding these things, but expanding access to the amenities we have." 

"My favorite part is that from the outside, it looks like it has always been there," says Houchins. "You drive by and you can't remember a time when it wasn't there." 

"That was the goal," says Davis. 

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Emily Pinsuwan

Emily is the League’s full-time Content Writer, composing emails, articles, blog posts, and press releases. If you need words, she has many. Prior to becoming a word person, she was a restaurant person, handling catering, event management, and marketing; prior still, she was a teaching person, at a private boarding school in Massachusetts. Having earned a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Georgia, Emily is confident that she is the only League employee fluent in Latin. She also enjoys cooking, stand-up comedy, and is an avid gamer, having achieved level 40 on her Steam profile.