NEWPORT — With construction underway on a new community center, the Selectboard held a required public hearing this week on a $4.8 million federal grant that will pay for more than half of the center’s cost.

Demolition of the ambulance garage and cemetery building at the Meadow Road site began earlier this month and foundation work has started, interim Town Manager Paul Brown told the Selectboard at its Monday meeting. The planned completion date with a “soft opening” is next November, he added.

Though the town has all the funding sources identified, it has not received approval for all of it. However, town officials have promised not to ask for tax dollars for the project, which has a total price tag of $8.87 million.

In addition to the USDA Rural Development Authority grant of $4.8 million, Brown said the majority of the balance will come from private donations and pledges of $1.5 million, nearly $1 million in cash-on-hand, and $1 million from the state of New Hampshire. The state money, he said, is expected in February 2024.

Asked how much the town is waiting to receive, Brown said a little more than $1 million, including the state money and about $40,000 in pledges.

“We are very confident in getting that,” Brown said Monday about the state grant available for new or renovated community centers.

The town also has a donation for a new Little League field to replace the one where the community center is being built and a Homeland Security grant of $156,000 for a new generator for the center, which will become the town’s emergency operations center, Brown said.

Town officials were able to speak briefly last week with Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, when the governor visited Newport with GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley for a campaign stop at the recreation center. They reminded Sununu of his commitment to the project.

“He has said before he is very supportive of us getting the money,” Selectboard Chairman Barry Connell said.

If the state money is not received, Brown and the Selectboard said they have already discussed, but not decided, where to make up the shortfall, including possibly using the $1 million the town is slated to receive for two workforce housing projects under construction.

Though costs have gone up since the center was first proposed, and rejected, by voters in 2019 and 2022, plans have not changed. The centerpiece of the 20,000-square-foot center is a 9,000-square-foot gym with seating for 500 and multipurpose, fitness and game rooms. The center would be available for a range of sports and activities including dancing, movies, a walking club, birthday parties, club meetings and lectures, as well as basketball, pickleball, wrestling and indoor soccer.

Removed from earlier proposals is the demolition of the current recreation center on Belknap Avenue, built as an armory in 1949, and construction of a three-bay ambulance garage. The current center could be modified for storage and an ambulance garage, Brown said Monday.

Voters rejected bond votes of $3.5 million in 2019 and $4 million in 2022 for a new center. The Selectboard did not feel the need to seek voter approval this time because tax dollars are not being raised, though a few residents said the town should still have put the question to voters. No one spoke at the public hearing Monday.

“We never intend to go back to the voters,” Selectboard member Jim Burroughs said. “We are confident in the funding sources laid out to us.”

There also is a clause in the contract that construction can be suspended without penalty to the town if there is a delay in completing the funding, Brown said.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.