Apple Valley’s senior center to get new name

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Three years after its opening, the Hayes Community and Senior Center in Apple Valley is getting a new name.

The City Council OK’d the name change for the city-run facility, which will be called the Apple Valley Senior Center, at its Oct. 11 meeting.

Though the facility was built to serve as the home of the Apple Valley Seniors club, in April 2009 the council voted 3-2 in favor of the name Hayes Community and Senior Center, in hopes that the name would make the venue more attractive to people looking to rent the building’s 200-seat party room for weddings, bridal showers and other social gatherings.

Council Member Ruth Grendahl, who in 2009 cast the deciding vote to name the building “Hayes Community and Senior Center,” introduced the motion at last week’s council meeting to rename it the “Apple Valley Senior Center.”

“I thought financially we were going to be able to generate revenues. … It was a fiduciary thing,” Grendahl said of her 2009 vote. “We all knew it was a senior center – that was never the question.”

The opening this fall of the new clubhouse at the city-owned Valleywood Golf Course means the city has another attractive space to rent out for social gatherings, Grendahl said.

To call the senior center the “Hayes Community and Senior Center” for marketing purposes, “frankly I don’t see that as an issue anymore,” she said.

Council Member Tom Goodwin, who was opposed to naming the venue “Hayes Community and Senior Center” in 2009, said the original name was “a huge betrayal to the Apple Valley Seniors,” who were part of a coalition instrumental in getting a $14 million bond referendum passed in 2007 that funded the center and other parks projects.

Goodwin said the name will officially be changed after Election Day in November, as “Hayes Community and Senior Center” is listed as one of the city of Apple Valley’s polling places.

As for the cost of changing the name, Goodwin said it will probably amount to “a couple hundred bucks.”

In addition to replacing the signage on the building, promotional materials for the facility will need to be changed, City Administrator Tom Lawell said.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of the name “Apple Valley Senior Center.” Council Member John Bergman opposed the measure, saying he was open to the name change but wanted additional discussion.