LYNN — The 150-unit senior affordable housing complex under construction near the former Union Hospital at 500 Lynnfield St. will be named “The Solimine House” after the business owners and philanthropists Mary Jane and David Somiline.
Soon after North Shore Medical Center closed their former Union Hospital in 2020, David Solimine Jr. purchased the site, and donatated it to two different organizations: Element Care and 2Life.
2Life, an affordable senior housing organization based in Brighton, will break ground on The Solimine House next year, while Lynn’s community health center, Element Care, will soon occupy the former hospital’s back end.
Solimine said that the two facilities might be conjoined to allow senior residents in 2Life’s Solimine House easy access to Element Care.
In an interview with Solimine Jr. Friday afternoon at the construction site, he pointed to the gutted former Union Hospital, and then to the vacant lot where his namesake building will be built.
“There’s either going to be a walkway or — they’re not sure if there’s going to be a bridge going from this building to that building so that people can stay inside and go from the apartment building over to their medical appointments,” Solimine Jr. said.
Across the street from the site, Solimine Jr. has overseen the construction of 12 out of the 16 single-family homes in Woodlands Village — a developing senior housing community off of Woodland Avenue. Solimine Jr. said that any profits that come from the housing development will be earmarked toward charitable organizations.
2Life Vice President Lizbeth Heyer said that the organization is still designing and financing the structure, which she estimates to be completed by early 2025.
The Solimine House, Heyer said, aims to partner with Element Care to provide fast and accessible healthcare services between the two facilities. It will include community rooms to hold meetings and social events for the senior residents.
“Multi Purpose spaces allow us to provide a rich array of programs and services to bring the community to life and intergenerational programming arts and culture lifelong learning,” Heyer said. “We’ll be working with the residents to plan a range of programs that will be interesting to them and benefit them, and then also on people that work with the residents also access the kind of support that they might need to remain living with us.”
She said that 2Life decided to name their facility after Solimine Sr. out of gratitude for the family’s land donation and partnership.
“They were the ones who secured the land, and they laid all the groundwork to make what we’re doing possible there,” Heyer said. “We’re just thrilled to name the building after and to honor their legacy as entrepreneurs and philanthropists and in particular on the hospital site given prior support the family provided the hospital.”
