ENFIELD — Enfield voters could end up considering renovation projects to the town’s public safety, town offices and library at Town Meeting this year.
The Enfield Selectboard is set to decide Tuesday if two renovation projects will be put on the warrant for an in-person, outdoor meeting scheduled to take place April 30.
The first is construction of a new building that would combine the town’s fire, police and EMS services on yet-to-be-purchased land. The second is a renovation of Whitney Hall, which includes town offices on the ground floor, the library on the second and an auditorium rented by Shaker Bridge Theatre on the top floor.
The projected cost of the public safety building is around $7.26 million, and the renovations to Whitney Hall are $5.8 million, according to information put together by BreadLoaf, an architectural, planning and building firm tapped by the town to develop plans for the project. That is roughly $3 million more than when the plans were first drawn up in 2020.
The two proposals came out of work done by the nine-member Municipal Facilities Advisory Committee, which was formed in 2019 to evaluate 11 town-owned building and come up with recommendations for their upkeep and/or repairs. The committee delivered its report to the Selectboard in September 2020.
Renovation plans for Whitney Hall and the public safety building started to be developed, but the process of bringing them before voters was put on pause. In addition to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, former town manager Ryan Aylesworth announced his departure and interim town manager Jack Wozmak took his place.
“This is very, very early in the process,” new town manager Ed Morris said before the start of a Thursday night meeting to discuss the proposals with the public, one of two held last week at the Enfield Community Building.
At the start of Thursday’s meeting, Wozmak addressed some Whitney Hall’s deficiencies, including drafty windows, a leaky roof and siding that is falling apart, not to mention the cramped spaces that the town workforce has outgrown.
“With a certain economy of scale, it might save some money,” Wozmak said about doing both projects at once. “At some point, there’s going to be some really expensive decisions to make.”
When Phil Shipman joined the facilities committee, he was initially against doing anything major, but as he toured facilities and learned more, his mind started to change.
“You wouldn’t want to be in some of these facilities yourself,” Shipman said at the meeting. “They’re in that bad of shape.”
Residents at the forum spoke of their concerns about of the projects’s costs on the town’s taxpayers, especially during a time when other costs are on the rise. Jean Patten, who also served on the committee, brought up that voters last year approved $3.8 million for water and sewer projects.
“How much more can people tolerate?” Patten asked at Thursday’s meeting.
Talk of renovating Whitney Hall began at least 15 years ago, said Shirley Green, a library trustee who also served on the facilities committee. A proposal put before voters was shot down around a dozen years ago and the library trustees began fundraising for a building of their own.
“We haven’t come anywhere near what we needed to raise funds for the library,” Green said in a phone interview before the meeting. She is supportive of the proposal of the Whitney Hall renovation, which will expand the library’s footprint and allow staff to offer more programs to patrons. “I think this is the very best plan: It addresses the needs for the library and the town offices and it also preserves Whitney Hall.”
Some residents were concerned about the continued stopgap repairs made to Whitney Hall to keep it functioning as the town debates the renovation project. Whitney Hall, a Queen Anne-style building, was completed in 1901, according to a walking tour brochure put together by the Enfield Village Association. The building underwent a “major renovation” in 1976.
This proposal calls for combining the Union Street Fire Station, the Depot Street Station where the town’s single ambulance is stored and the police station on Main Street. The Depot Street Station regularly floods, Shipman said, and the fire station is also too small for the department’s needs. The police department has similarly outgrown its space.
“The ambulance and the fire departments are clearly in buildings that were never intended to be for the purpose that they’re being used now,” Enfield Police Chief Roy Holland said in a phone interview Friday. The fire station was a milk bottling plant and the EMS station was a train station. The police department building was completed in 1993, but the department has since outgrown the space. The original evidence room was no bigger than a small walk-in closet, Holland said, and they converted one of two garage bays to replace it.
Moving the three departments to one space “only bolsters the available resources to the town of Enfield,” Holland said. He is also sympathetic to those who are worried about the impact of the projects on the town’s tax rate.
After consulting with members of all three departments, the decision was made to find land on Route 4 on which to build. A plot of land behind Family Dollar on Route 4 that is owned by the Mascoma Valley Regional School District was suggested as a possibility. If the proposal goes before voters this year and is approved, the school board would have to vote to put a proposal to sell the land in front of school district voters in all five Mascoma Valley towns, but that wouldn’t happen until 2023.
David Beaufait, who attended both meetings last week, said those who were in support of the projects made a good case for the improvements, but he had concerns.
“I think this project has not dealt with the affordability to our taxpayers,” he said. “I don’t think this is ready yet to go to voters.”
Kim Quirk wanted more information about the projected operating costs for both projects, particularly if they were to become netzero.
“I think we’re not ready this year,” Quirk said.
Interest rates are still relatively low, Morris said, but they are expected to rise. If the two projects go before voters this year, the town could lock in financing even if the projects do not start for a few years.
If both projects are done at the same time, it could take 93 weeks, according to Jim Pulver, a representative from BreadLoaf who attended Thursday’s meeting. If they are done separately, it could take 145 weeks.
Sue Young, who said she was undecided about the projects yet, worried about splitting them up as it could exhaust voters who are asked to approve multiple expensive projects.
“If you put it all together, you bite the bullet once,” Young said. She also pointed out that town officials have been exploring what federal funds they can use, the potential sale of town properties and the library trustee’s continued fundraising efforts. “The cost of these projects is not solely on the shoulders of taxpayers.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
