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Date: 12/5/2023
GRANBY — The former West Street Elementary School building last had students occupying its classrooms five years ago and while it has remained vacant since the schools closing, a special Town Meeting has been scheduled for Monday, Dec. 11 at East Meadow School for a vote that will decide a renovation project for the space.
The article presented at the upcoming special Town Meeting will see if the town will transfer from its free cash $5,357,225.15 for the purpose of funding the renovation of the West Street building for municipal offices, the Senior Center and additional future programs at the site. The building closed in 2018 due to budget constraints and structural issues. The town then opted to transfer students from the 76-year-old school to a new wing of East Meadow School.
Reminder Publishing spoke to West Street Building Committee chair Lynn Mercier about the project’s scope and what passing the article will do to benefit the town and its government. The committee’s funding request comes based off estimates for a fire protection system, new windows and doors, an HVAC system, asbestos removal, PCB removal and new water systems. If the project passes, the committee expects renovations to be complete by December 2024, according to Mercier.
“What we found out by going through the building and looking at its blueprints was that the building was structurally sound, the roof of the building was relatively new, and we knew that the building was large enough to house all our town municipal offices as well as the COA [Council on Aging],” Mercier explained. She added that renovation came out to be the best deal for the town compared to estimates of doing a complete demolition and construction for a new space. “We’d rather use the building than demolish. The most financially fiscal thing to do at this point was to renovate.”
The project also includes $1 million to cover any inaccuracies in estimates or miscellaneous expenses.
Funding for the project will come from ARPA funds and unspent money from the towns general and capital project funds.
Town officials currently work out of the Town Hall Annex and Senior Center. The town’s three-year lease of the Annex expires next year. According to a document included with the warrant, moving town offices to the West Street Building will save on monthly rent for the Annex, maintenance fees, mowing, plowing, paving and wear on town-owned equipment. The town will also then be opened to the option of selling the Senior Center building.
“The benefit will be having all the town offices in one central location. It’s unusual for a town to use several buildings. People who want to come speak to someone at town offices sometimes end up at the wrong building and have to go to another building,” Mercier said.
If the article is denied, the town will continue to pay $23,000 yearly in general maintenance until the building is decommissioned. The West Street Building Committee has estimated the cost of asbestos removal and demolition at $2.5 million and town offices in the Annex would be relocated following the end of the lease.
A different committee inspected the building and recommended to demolish it and build two new buildings back in 2018 and while the Selectboard adopted the recommendation, the project never moved forward. Last year, Mercier and other residents expressed interested to the board about creating a new committee in order to address what to do with the building.
Mercier said the estimates from the 2018 report have changed significantly, making a renovation of the structurally sound building the best deal for the town.
“The bottom line is that we would be able to cut down on maintaining and wear and tear of multiple buildings to just one,” Mercier said.