Voters approve West Street building project
GRANBY – Voters approved a $5.6 million project to renovate the former West Street School building to be used as municipal offices at the town’s Special Town Meeting.
During the meeting, members of the West Street Building Committee spoke to the advantages of the project, which will use 44,000 square feet for existing and potential use for the town offices.
Committee member Micheline Turgeon said the building is currently being used for storage and the town insures the building for $23,000 annually.
One of the reasons for the project is due to the fact the town is renting the Town Hall Annex building for $25,000 annually and has 18 months to determine what to do with the offices within the building since the property owner is seeking to sell it.
The town is set to use $1.8 million in ARPA funds, $1.4 million in unspent prior general fund articles and $2.3 million in unspent capital project articles.
The cost of the project includes installation and/or repairs of a sprinkler/fire protection system, windows and doors, the HVAC system, a water system and PCB and asbestos removal. The funding also covers Owners Project Manager’s fees, designer/engineer fees and contingency, according to the future of the West Street building document on the town’s website.
There are cost variables including the removal of an underground oil tank and the removal of universal waste and hazardous waste from the building.
However, the benefits of the projects outweigh the risks of higher cost items, according to the voters.
Turgeon said the savings of maintaining one building versus three for maintenance, plowing, heating and more is worth it as well as having a building large enough to suite the town’s needs.
“We need a plan for our future and start kicking the can down the road,” she said. “It is our opinion that this project will present the town with a building that is completely free of hazardous material, capable housing all existing offices, storage of all documents and records in one location capability of housing additional office space for town growth,
capable of conducting town elections and town meetings, providing a safe location for seniors and all their needs, make it easier for companies and contractors to conduct business in town.”
One important aspect of the project, which was described by Finance Committee Chair John J. Libera Jr. as four projects wrapped into one, is the removal of a single wall oil tank.
“That’s the first thing they’re going to do before they do anything else is start drilling holes around to find out whether or not there’s any leakage from that tank,” he said.
The second, third and fourth parts, so to speak, are the relocation of the offices from the Town Hall Annex building, consolidation of all the offices in one place in Granby and using funds that were already allocated by the town rather than having to raise taxes.
Resident Heather Howes asked if the oil tank project was more expensive than the town anticipated, what would happen to the funding.
“Are these funds then allocated all towards the oil tank is it stopped and then there’s another vote?” she asked.
West Street Building Committee member Kevin O’Grady said yes, and “then we’ll come back and say okay, this is what we cost for the tank and see what we have left and try to do what we can with the project or start back at square one.” Resident David LaPlante asked where the funding would come from for the offices. Turgeon answered that the offices will be moving their own furniture.
“We just have to renovate the room itself. Like I said, light, paint, what is required and maybe some walls or space like that, but they’re bringing other things with them,” she said.
In opposition to the project included proposals to the residents to propose ARPA projects and use the ARPA funding for the oil tank removal.
There were questions regarding using funds for the Granby Jr. Sr. High School, but members of the Finance Committee said if the town were to spend over 30 percent of the project fund limitation, that would trigger state requirements to renovate the building to become ADA-compliant.
There was an attempt to amend the article made by resident Lisa Petraglia, who proposed using the ARPA funds to remove the oil tank and hire a designer.
Town Moderator Lynn Mercier said the amendment was outside of the scope of the project and outside the description, so it couldn’t be considered.
Discussion on the project was ended after a resident proposed calling the questions and voters approved the article with a simple majority.
