The Harbor Community Building on Jericho Road has provided Scituate folks with a venue for a wide variety of meetings and events since it was purchased by the town a couple of years ago. It has hosted the town’s 375th Birthday Celebration to a community forum on opiates, public safety meetings and senior citizen groups to name just a few.
Unfortunately the building itself was neglected before the town purchased it and the land upon which it sits, and the town is faced with difficult choices on how to best use the site. I do hope that the usefulness of a community center has been noted by the powers that be and that we will not lose such a wonderful town asset. We need more opportunities to work together for the betterment of our town as a whole.
This building looks brand new. It’s hard to imagine it downtrodden and neglected. It looks like a terrific site for community events, and a setting like this would probably make it popular to rent for private functions, too.
The roof is in pretty rough shape, Kay, and the side facing the harbor is pretty weather-beaten. It was a restaurant for many years (in fact, I had dinner there before a semi-formal dance when I was in high school!) and then the property was sold to a developer who kept trying to get permits for enormous condominiums or some such thing. So by the time the opportunity (and funds!) arose for the town to buy it, the building had been vacant and neglected for years. Very unfortunate.
I really hope that they can find a way to allocate some funds for this project Ali, such a classic old building, it almost looks like if could have been a boathouse at some time, it’s a treasure that should be preserved..fingers crossed oui!
Having a community building of some sort is such a treasure – and having a community building right on the harbor, which is so emblematic of our town, is doubly wonderful. Most community gatherings end up at local church halls, school cafeterias, the library and so on… I think when a community is willing to invest in a community space, it sends an important message about who we are and how much we are willing to work together to find common ground.