Town Hall
Having the Town's administrative functions divided into two separate buildings located several blocks away from each other is awkward, inefficient, and inconvenient both for municipal workers and for the public.
The survey of municipal needs, both current and projected, suggests that we should have a site that can accommodate approximately 7,500 square feet of office and storage space and an additional 1,600 sq ft of space if a large assembly room is required (we may continue to use the Cornell Theater for those meetings as an alternative).
Moreover, we should have parking for approximately 30 or 40 cars to accommodate workers and visitors.
As a practical matter, our greatest need is for office and meeting space for the Town's administrative functions. With Cornell Theater, the School, and, to some extent, the Senior Center available, we already have space for medium and large-scale gatherings.
Consequently, our new town hall does not need to include a large auditorium but can be primarily a municipal building with offices and meeting rooms.
Option 1: Purchase the Catholic Church Property as a Site for a New Town Hall
This is the only piece of private property that we have included in this study. It is not currently being offered for sale but is likely to become available in the near future. The property consists of 2.36 acres of land and is valued at $2.141 million dollars. Market value is probably closer to $3.5 million. The site includes a large field, a 60-car parking area, and a building with approximately 12,000 sq ft of floor area, 6,000 on the main floor, and an equal amount of finished basement. A new town hall would require between eight and ten thousand square feet of space, depending on whether or not we include a main assembly hall. Significant modifications to the building, or possibly a new structure, would be required, but we could nevertheless take advantage of the existing site work, parking, and infrastructure.
The initial question is whether or not the property would become available in the near future, and what the asking price for it would be. If possible, we should purchase the property as soon as it becomes available, even if we have to wait to proceed with construction.
Option 2: Build a New Town Hall (Municipal Building) at the Church Street Tennis Courts
This property is large enough to accommodate the building and is close to the Cornell Theater, which can continue to be used for large gatherings. It might be difficult to include all the town's departments in the new structure, but a few could remain at the current town hall while the new structure provided more office space meeting rooms and storage.
We could build a 7,000 sq ft structure on the Church St. property and still include a small 30-car parking lot to accommodate Town Hall needs. The building (an expanded annex) would include the departments currently located at the present Annex, plus one or two departments that are currently at Town Hall (e.g. Assessor and Treasurer) along with expanded storage, meeting and office space. The Town Administrator, Select Board, and Town Clerk would remain at their present location. Cornell Theater would continue to be used for large gatherings.