For about a year and a half starting in October, the town of Oak Bluffs will be run out of three double-wide trailers on School street in order to make way for a new town hall.
Town officials had considered several locations for the temporary offices, including the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School campus, a property on Edgartown-Vineyard Haven road, and the airport industrial park.
“We were trying to figure out what the best location was, and everything pulled us back to here,” project manager Joe Sullivan of Daedalus Projects, Inc. said at a public hearing for abutters last week.
Voters this year appropriated $9.88 million at the annual town meeting to pay for the new town hall, and approved a related debt exclusion on the annual election ballot.
Town hall building committee chairman Bill McGrath noted last week that earlier plans to relocate to the high school during construction and improve some of the school facilities were met with strong resistance from the community, in part because of the higher cost.
The new plan calls for town departments to be relocated to trailers on a vacant lot behind The Parish Center on School street, just across from the current town hall, which town officials expect to be demolished in November to make way for the new building.
Parking for town hall employees and visitors during the day will also be located on the Parish Center property.
About 90 abutters surround the property within 300 feet, but only three attended the hearing at the town hall last Wednesday to share concerns about the project.
“One of the things we love about up here is it’s quiet,” said Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, a screenwriter, playwright and producer, who raised concerns about noise related to the construction of the new town hall.
Project clerk John Lebica, who attended the hearing, noted that he had worked with neighbors on construction of the Oak Bluffs fire station three years ago. “That’s squeezed into a pretty tight little spot,” he said of the station on the corner of Wing and County roads. “We worked really closely with the neighbors to try to minimize the negative impacts.”
Mr. Sullivan added that he will remain accessible to abutters by cell phone during construction, which he said would last about 18 months. Work will take place between the hours of about 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. “There will be some inconveniences, but we try to minimize it,” he said of the project.
Mr. McGrath said the cost of the trailers would be included in the overall budget for the project.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission will review the project as a development of regional impact, with a public hearing scheduled to begin in late September. The town hopes to obtain all the necessary permits and set up the temporary trailers by late October.
After town offices move out, demolition of the current town hall would likely take place in November. Mr. McGrath expected the project to be completed and town offices moved into the new building by May 2019.
Comments
Comment policy »