Built more than 50 years ago as an elementary school, almost everyone agrees Oak Bluffs town hall is in deplorable shape.

Building inspector noted 13 areas of deficiency in his report. — Mark Lovewell

An inspection by town building inspector Mark Barbadoro, as part of an evaluation of all town buildings, found town hall by far the municipal building most in need of repair or replacement. Under the heading of general conditions, Mr. Barbadoro listed 13 areas of deficiency, including rotting windows, an air conditioning system that functions in only half the building, floor tiles and steam pipes that may contain asbestos, water damage, crumbling drywall and broken light fixtures.

An antiquated and poorly functioning heating system is also one of many problems town hall employees and visitors deal with every day. On a good day in winter, the temperature in Liz Durkee’s office is 50 degrees. Wearing a winter coat at her desk is not unusual. Meanwhile, just across the hall, the temperature is beyond cozy, pushing 80 degrees despite the winter chill outside.

“It was freezing on this side of the building for two days last week,” Ms. Durkee, the town conservation agent, said. “It’s so depressing to walk into the building in the morning. It’s demoralizing for the town to have such a disgraceful town building. It should be a point of pride for the town.”

A public hearing is scheduled for March 28 at 4 p.m. at the library. — Mark Lovewell

Mr. Barbadoro’s report also lists many safety issue including exposed high voltage wiring, smoke alarms that do not meet current standards, failed emergency lighting, and exit signs that are misleading because the building interior has been modified so many times. He noted that accessibility for people with disabilities falls far short of current standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“The town hall continues to have ADA complaints filed against it and has been modified through the years in a haphazard manner,” Mr. Barbadoro wrote in his recommendations attached to the September 2016 report. “Either the town should hire a design professional to address the deficiencies and create a plan to completely renovate the building or a new building should be built.”

At this year’s annual town meeting, voters will decide whether to spend $9.9 million to demolish the building, and replace it with a modern structure on the same site. Since the project involves borrowing money, two-thirds of the voters present at the April 11 town meeting must approve for the warrant article to pass. It will also require a majority vote at the town elections on a ballot question to exclude the debt from the town’s tax levy under the Proposition 2 1/2 tax limiting law. Town elections are scheduled for April 13, two days after town meeting.

New town hall features three floors, four entrances, and six bathrooms.

At the 2014 annual town meeting, voters approved $6.8 million for a new town hall, but the measure failed at the ballot box and the project was put on hold.

A public hearing on the project is scheduled for Tuesday, March 28 in the library conference room. The hearing will get underway at 4 p.m.

Town administrator Bob Whritenour said the town hall building committee has made significant improvements in the design that was rejected by voters in the town election.

“They’ve kept a very economical type of design,” Mr. Whritenour said. “It fits into the Oak Bluffs architecture.”

There has been considerable opposition, however, to the new town hall project since voters rejected the plans in 2014. Members of the planning board wrestled with members of the board of selectmen over design and siting of the new building, against a backdrop of heated politics. Selectman Walter Vail, a vocal proponent of the new town hall, faces a election challenge for a selectmen’s seat this spring from planning board chairman Brian Packish, an equally vocal opponent of the design and planning process.

Heating system is antiquated and poorly functioning. — Mark Lovewell

The proposed design would sit on roughly the same footprint as the current town hall, but the current two floor building would expand to three full floors with a partial basement. The finished building would be about 20,0000 square feet.

Plans include four entrances, six bathrooms and an elevator, all accessible for people with disabilities. A first floor conference room would accommodate 60 people for meetings or events, with smaller conference rooms on the other floors smaller meetings. Town department offices would be grouped together in order to make it simpler for the public to pay taxes, get a building permit or do other town business.

Mr. Whritenour said the town has a small window to finance the new building. On a recent day at town hall, he showed a visitor a chart of the town’s current debt load. The chart shows a sharply descending trend, as the town pays off most of the capital projects it has built over the past two decades, including a new school and harbor improvements. He said the trend would continue downward, thought not as sharply, if the town borrowed $9.9 million this year to build a new town hall.

“There is no way the building can stay like it is,” Mr. Whritenour said.

Mr. Whritenour said to delay would mean the town might have to finance a new town hall at the same time as future large capital projects, including expansion of the town sewer system. He also said the rate of inflation increases the cost of the project by $400,000 every six months.

Building committee member Bill McGrath hopes voters will come to the town meeting and the ballot box informed about the project.

“It’s a tough nut,” Mr. McGrath said. “Because of the timing of this, the capital budget continues to go down, even though we add this very large chunk. From just a capital budgeting perspective, it sits very nicely. Of course very few voters think that way, they look at total taxes and they go up. I’m optimistic that if people are informed, then it makes sense, and they’ll vote for it. I’m not tremendously optimistic that people like to be informed. A lot of people that don’t go to the town meeting, vote.”

If approved by voters, construction would begin in the fall, with staff temporarily relocated to portable office trailers. Construction is expected to take 18 months, with the building scheduled to open in the spring of 2019.