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NORTHBRIDGE, Mass. – The Building, Planning and Construction Committee put its support behind the purchase of a building and property on Douglas Road for use by Northbridge's Department of Public Works.
Although the purchase of property comes under the jurisdiction of the Board of Selectmen, Town Manager Theodore Kozak said the Finance Committee wanted to know the building committe’s position before deciding whether to recommend the $995,000 purchase to voters at the Oct. 23 fall town meeting.
The Finance Committee is charged with taking a position on all town meeting articles.
“My recommendation is to purchase the building,’’ Kozak said, although there is some risk involved. It has been estimated that an additional $2.1 million will be needed to renovate the structure to fit the needs of the DPW.
Voters could agree to purchase the property at the upcoming town meeting but refuse to fund the renovations, a request that will be made at the spring town meeting next May. That would leave the town with a property it can’t use.
Kozak said he would prefer to bring the proposal before voters as a package deal, but the property is for sale now and there isn’t time to go out for formal bids on the renovation before town meeting.
Building committee members expressed concern over the $2.1 million renovation estimate.
”We don’t want to find out something will increase the cost after we’ve done our due diligence,’’ member Paul Bedigian said.
“We’re tried to make sure we won’t have that problem,’’ Kozak said. “We’re pretty confident we’re pretty close. We’re going to town meeting with some confidence that we’re close.’’
DPW Director James Shuris and a cost estimator for HKT Architects, which had proposed an $8 million DPW facility at its current location on Fletcher Street, did simultaneous estimates and came up with nearly identical numbers, Shuris said.
“It’s a good estimate. It won’t be much different in May,’’ Kozak said.
Finance Committee members Salvatore D’Amato and Christopher Thompson also attended the meeting.
D’Amato suggested that Finance Committee support will come with a condition – that no more than $3.1 million be authorized. “That’s what we’ve done with other projects, like the high school,’’ he said.
D’Amato believes voters will support the project if they see a united front by the building committee, selectmen and Finance Committee.
Comments (10)
I am in agreement with Jack Davis' comments in the article about the DPW meeting with the seniors.
It would be a blessing rather than a curse if the Douglas Rd. property were to be sold to another party prior to the town meeting.
If people would have listened to the HKT proposal @ the BOS meeting that night they would've heard that their proposal included most of the clean up cost, regrading, instulation of proper drainage, dismantiling of brick building (NOT HOUSING MOST OF OUR D.P.W. EQUIP!) reusing what could be reused and building a structure that would last another 50+ yrs. I know so much easier to stop listening @ 8 million!
gusjr,
What I heard at the BOS meeting was there were funds for site work excluding any possible clean-up. Didn't they say that testing was required before costs would be known?
I have a copy of HKT's report and I don't see any clean-up costs in it. If you know differently would you tell us where it is in the report?
Myself and the Mitchell team have not stopped listening about the 8.5 million dollar plan but continue to put forth our 1.8 as an alternative. It matches or exceeds HKT's despite what anyone who is against us will tell you.
If the BOS put forward the 8.5, supported it and got unanimous approval from the Finance Committee (Mr. D'Amato-sorry can't resist) and the BPCC, speaking for myself, I will vote for it.
Jack
Does the Fletcher Street ($8 million proposal) include demolition and cleanup of the site?
Where would the DPW operate out of during demolition, cleanup, and construction? How long would the whole project take?
If these questions have been considered and the answers are acceptable to those involved, I would favor the $8 million proposal.
ANY proposal that includes a purchase of private property will face a long, drawn out, and nasty discussion on the town meeting floor.
From what I know of the proposal it does include the demo and an allowance for a good chunk of the clean-up of contaminated soils that may be discovered in the process of construction.
Where the new facility is located it should be feasible to allow the current main garage to remain operational until a certain point that they could move across the site into the new facility.
To me the numbers (when looked at in the long run) just don't make sense with the proposed buy & renovate scenario.
Purchase price $1 million
Renovation costs $2.1 million
Potential Lost Revenues $2 million plus
Why spend (includes future losses) in the vicinity of 5 to 6 million dollars on a hodge podge of retrofitted buildings on multiple sites? Couple that with a duplication of facility operating costs, decreased effecincy, higher maintenance and upkeep costs and you don't have much of a savings from the proposed $8 million dollar facility.
That proposed facility would solve the issue of being in the floodplain, takes care of future remediation issues, less redundancy, lower operating costs, doesn't effect future revenues, keeps valuable commercial property in a prime location available..............
I don't see an upside to this proposal other than the Bloem family finally gets to sell their real estate.
Let the residents vote on the proposed $8 million proposal at Fletcher street.
This proposal doesn't make much fiscal sense.
They want to buy that property for nearly $1million dollars, then sink another $2.1 into having to renovate it?
The current real estate taxes on that property are 11k per year now, but what will they be in 5 ,10, 20, 30......... years from now? If the building has a 50 year life span it would be well within the realm of possibility that the Town stands to potentially loose between $1 to $1.5 million in lost future revenue just in RE taxes alone.
It's not like Northbridge has an abundency of commercial properties available why take one off of the tax rolls. Besides loosing the RE taxes the Town stands to loose revenue from lost water & sewer rates, as well as excise tax from vehicles that would be associated with the business in that location. It also stands to loose on future personal property taxes that any business that would have been there would have been subject to pay on all of it's belongings etc.. The loss of potential revenues for a site like that is in all likeliehood easily above $2 million.
Even if the sites are only 3/4 of a mile apart you still have the iefficiency of one operation operating out of two locations. By buying the Douglas Rd. property you also have done nothing to address floodplain issues or future remediation issues at the Fletcher St. site.
You combine all of that and the cost will be in the vicinity of the $8 million dollar proposal that is currently out there.
In my opinion this proposal just doesn't add up.
What is the address of the address of the property on Douglas Rd.?
It's the former Old Colony/NEOS building.