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Area seniors will have a new place to meet and greet next year.

Construction of the Beltsville-Laurel Senior Activity Center, a 22,000-square-foot facility located adjacent to Laurel Regional Hospital on Contee Road, is scheduled to begin Friday and should be completed by early next summer, said County Councilman Thomas E. Dernoga (D-Dist.1) of Laurel.

After more than eight years of planning and waiting, the new center will replace the current Phelps Senior Center, located at 701 Montgomery St., which operates out of the former Laurel High School and is only 10,500 square feet. Dernoga said the project will cost about $6.5 million and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission will build the facility.

West Laurel resident Clare Ferguson, 73, said having a new senior center will actually be more central than its current space in Old Town.

"It will be closer for the folks in Beltsville. We have seniors in the friendship club from all over the county. You're shocked when you get a list and look at the addresses," she said.

Curt Curtis, 75, of Laurel, president of the Laurel Senior Friendship Club's All Together Laurel Area Seniors, a nonprofit that has been involved with lobbying for a new center, said 14,000 people age 55 or older are within 10 miles of the new center.

"It's a beautifully designed building," he said. "And it's designed for seniors by seniors."

Ferguson said the new center will have art studios for painting or ceramics, wellness areas and weight rooms.

"They just come up there for companionship, but there's going to be a little more for them to do," she said."

Dernoga said he was pleased to see the project begin but saddened that many seniors who were instrumental in the process have passed away along the way.

"A number of people who started on this are no longer with us," he said. "A lot of seniors were probably wondering if they were ever going to see it open."

Dernoga thanked the senior citizens for their involvement with the project.

"A great thing about this project is the seniors were hands on with program, it was really a hands-on senior project and very citizen-driven," he said.

Curtis, Ferguson and Dernoga all thanked Del. Barbara A. Frush (D-Dist.21) of Beltsville for her assistance in completing the project's final stages, particularly dealing with Dimension Healthcare as they were being shopped for buyers by the Hospital Authority, a seven-member state task force appointed last May to seek out and review bids on the county-owned hospital system.

"Barbara got us over the final hurdles," he said. "Barbara helped us get through the hospital authorities," Dernoga said.

Frush was unavailable for comment as of press time.