A senior citizens center will soon be opened in a vacant guardhouse at the East Branch Forest Preserve in Glendale Heights.
Village trustees voted Thursday night to approve a 50-year agreement with the DuPage County Forest Preserve District assigning to the village responsibility for fixing up and maintaining the vacant house, off Glen Ellyn Road near Fullerton Avenue on the village’s east side.
The village will have to pay the district an annual rent of $1 and repair the parking lot.
It is uncertain where the money will come from to renovate the house or when the center would be opened. Costs for fixing up the house have been estimated at $70,000.
The village long had planned to open a seniors center in the preserve, but wrangling over the agreement for more than a year put the proposed pact on the back burner.
The district had intended to dismantle the house, which has been vacant since mid-1997. Commissioners withdrew that recommendation after Commissioner Roger Jenisch (R-Bloomingdale) asked the district to consider the center.