The Oak Bluffs town hall renovation project has taken another step forward, after selectmen voted on Tuesday to engage in contract negotiations with Concord-based Atlantic Construction and Management as their owner’s project manager (OPM).

The hiring of an OPM provides oversight for the design and construction phases of the project, an important step in the renovation process as town meeting fast approaches.

Selectmen engaged Icon Architects to put out a request for proposals for the project late last winter, after they presented the board with a variety of concept designs for the renovated town hall. Those designs included a three-level option with meeting rooms on the bottom floor and town offices on the two floors above.

Currently, the selectmen hold their meetings in the town’s library meeting room next door.

Voters previously approved a $9.8 million town hall renovation project at town meeting in 2017, but rejected the proposal at a later special town meeting after bids came in that were more than $1 million over the previously allocated amount.

The owner’s project manager for that earlier version of the project was Daedelus Projects Inc.

Selectmen are hoping with this iteration of the project to avoid any expensive surprises after town meeting. On Tuesday, they said they also planned to retain Atlantic as a construction manager at-risk, meaning that the cost of the project will be pre-bid in order to ensure voters know the project’s maximum cost estimate.

Atlantic was one of two respondents to the RFP that was put out late last year. The other was a firm called Anser, which according to selectmen had never before worked on the Vineyard. The town has previously worked with Atlantic on a roof and HVAC renovation project for the Oak Bluffs School.

Selectmen cited that experience in their decision to go with Atlantic as the project’s OPM. Interviews were conducted earlier Tuesday by town administrator Robert Whritenour, and selectmen Brian Packish and Jason Balboni.

“They were two really good, qualified candidates,” Mr. Packish said at the meeting. “After weighing all things and all things being equal, considering the time sensitive nature of the project we felt Atlantic was a little ahead of the curve of the conversation.”

In other business, selectmen heard from a trio of middle-schoolers who are looking to get a plastic bottle ban bylaw on the annual town meeting warrant. The students, who attend the West Tisbury and Charter schools, are part of a group called Plastic Free MV that got the plastic bottle ban passed in the three up-Island towns last year.

The bylaw would ban the sale or distribution of all water and carbonated beverage bottles under 34 ounces.

Although the bylaw passed enthusiastically in the up-Island towns last year, selectmen said they have received pushback from businesses in the much more heavily commercial down-Island towns. On Tuesday, they resisted the student’s push to put the bylaw on the warrant, and instead scheduled a forum to hear from the town’s businesses for the next selectmen’s meeting on Feb. 11.

“Personally I think it’s great, I think we all do,” selectman Michael Santoro said. “We’re just worried about the financial hit that some of our businesses would take. It’s a little different in our towns than in some of the other towns.”