Icon Architecture, the Boston firm that designed Oak Bluffs’ town hall renovations in 2020-2022, has a new Island contract in the works.

The Tisbury select board voted last week to approve up to $70,000 for Icon to identify a site where town hall offices can be brought together under one roof.

The town hall annex on High Point Lane. — Ray Ewing

The money comes from funds that were previously approved by town meeting voters for the consolidated town hall search.

At a special town meeting last December, voters also approved $600,000 in design and architecture services for the new town hall, with the stipulation that none of it can be spent until the location is finalized.

Tisbury’s municipal offices have long been scattered through the town, with the finance and town clerk’s offices on the first floor of the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Spring street and the planning, building and health departments operating out of an aging pair of modular buildings on High Point Lane.

After mold rendered their Spring street offices unsafe two years ago, the town administrator and personnel departments moved in with the department of public works, also on High Point Lane. 

Desperate for space, Tisbury officials considered leasing the former Educomp and telephone company building on State Road, but opted to continue the search for a suitable town-owned property.

Along with the Spring street building — a former church from the mid-1800s — and the High Point Lane property adjoining the Park and Ride and municipal transfer station, the town also owns a vacant building lot at 55 William street across from the Tisbury School, as well as the police department building downtown and the emergency services facility on Spring street, built in 2013.

Icon Architecture’s job will be to assess the town’s various landholdings for the most suitable site to develop as the future Tisbury town hall.

A five-member task force of Tisbury residents, headed by Rick Homans, selected the firm from five applicants for the contract, town administrator Joseph LaCivita said at a select board meeting July 3.

Mr. LaCivita told the board members he would bring the Icon Architecture contract back for their final approval and signatures on July 22.