Mercer County Area Agency on Aging made its deadline to vacate the Wheatland-Farrell United Methodist Church by Thursday, said Chief Executive Officer Ann Marie Spiardi.

Senior programs and licensed adult day care will begin Monday at the new Shenango Valley Center for Aging and Geriatric Health in Hermitage, she said.

The center will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Floy Moreira, center director, expects some curious visitors as well as the usual seniors who had been attending programs at the church.

"Probably, people are going to come in for a look-see," she said.

The seniors will not have all the space Monday they eventually will have available as some work remains to be done and furniture needs to be brought in, Mrs. Spiardi said.

"The major things are in order," she said of renovating and expanding the former Bill Rudge Ministries of Living Truth building, 220 N. Buhl Farm Drive. "It's just the little things to do."

A dining room in the new center will be open for lunch and some limited programs this month, and the bathrooms will be operational.

The senior center finished activities at the church Wednesday, and scheduled no programs for Thursday or today.

Arrangements were made to provide lunch to seniors who wanted it, Mrs. Spiardi said.

In the new center, seniors eventually will have access to a large multi-purpose room with a walking track and shuffleboard area, an activities room with a pool table, a computer lab and an exercise room, Mrs. Spiardi said.

Ms. Moreira said officials are planning to expand programming once all the work is complete.

"We have a lot of hope," she said.

The building also eventually will house a geriatric health wing and a food service area.

An open house will be held in the spring, Mrs. Spiardi said.

The agency bought the Rudge building a year ago after deciding not to renovate and expand the former J.A. Farrell School building in Farrell, where the senior center had been located for 27 years.

The church has hosted the senior center since January 1999, when an asbestos removal project gutted the former school building.

Mrs. Spiardi thanked the church members for their help and patience while the senior center was located there.

"They certainly have extended themselves for the time that we've been there," she said. "They're all very nice people."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpinchot@sharon-herald.com