GRANBY — Residents will vote on a $10 million Proposition 2½ debt exclusion override to renovate half of the old West Street School into municipal offices for every department and a new senior center at a special Town Meeting on Tuesday.

Voters at the meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at East Meadow Elementary School, will discuss whether to spend the $10 million to renovate about 22,000 square feet into 12,900 square feet for municipal offices and 9,400 square feet for a new Council on Aging location.

Should that vote on Article 1 fail, residents will consider a second article that would allocate $2.5 million in existing funds to demolish the building.

If Article 1 is approved, the question would go before voters at a town election on May 19.

The West Street Building Project is estimated to cost about $15.7 million. In December 2023, voters approved a separate $5.6 million for the project.

Work to be done on the office space and senior center includes new windows, fire suppression, accessibility, ventilation and electrical upgrades to transform the old structure. Currently, municipal offices are split between the upstairs of the Senior Center at 10 W. State St. and the Town Hall Annex.

“It is giving more space than (the departments) currently have here and it’s putting us all into one building,” said Jen Silva, a member of the West Street Building Committee. “It’s taking a building currently not on tax rolls and put it on tax rolls. It’s keeping us from upkeeping a building that we do not own. The convenience of having us all in the same space for various reasons is some thing that really needs to be considered.”

Building committee chair Lynn Mercier said during a March 25 public information session that the town will need to take out a $10 million bond to fund the project. At that price, a homeowner of a median house assessed at $350,000 will pay between $236 and $260 more in property taxes a year for 25 years.

While half the building will be unfinished, the West Street Building Committee said the funding, if approved, would be used to abate the entire building and replace windows and doors to prepare the unoccupied space for future use as departments expand.

Renovation costs triple

Since originally approved in 2023, the cost of the project has tripled. At that time, the committee told those at Town Meeting that the project would not exceed the allocated amount nor require tax dollars to fund.

“You said at the special Town Meeting that the building would cost $5 million,” Granby resident Richard Domeracki said on March 25. “It would not raise our taxes one penny, that was not true. Now you’re asking for $10 more million for a total of $15 million.”

Mercier explained that once the project’s architect, Tim Widman from EDM Studio in Farmington, Conn., began conducting the necessary studies and assessments, he discovered that the heating and cooling systems were not up to Massachusetts building codes. Updates to ventilation and electrical systems are needed to support the brand new system.

“While the quotes that the committee was able to obtain in 2023 were accurate, it was the unforeseen costs, the quotes the committee could not anticipate without doing a formal study, which contributed to the increase of the renovation expenses,” Mercier said.

This means the renovations will exceed 30% of the building’s appraised value, tripping Americans with Disabilities Act compliance requirements, Mercier added. After speaking with department heads about workspace and storage needs, the committee worked with Widman and Neil Joyce, the project’s owner project manager from Construction Monitoring Services Inc. to reconfigure the building to fit the town’s requites. This increased the initial scope of the project by 30%, jacking up the cost.

Other options for theWest Street Building

If the residents vote down the Proposition 2½ debt exclusion at the special Town Meeting or town election, Police Chief Kevin O’Grady said the other option is to demolish the structure at a cost of $3 million. The town will also need to finish paying off the building’s new roof, roughly $160,000.

Currently, town offices are split between Carnegie Library, the Council on Aging and the Town Hall Annex building. The current Council on Aging building, which also houses town administration, is currently too small for both departments.

“The town of Granby has 1,004 people over the age of 70,” resident Terry Johnson said. “This building is too small. We cannot do what we want here, and it’s outdated and that’s not an option.”

The Annex lease ends in June, and the owner of the property has asked the town to either pave the driveway for $40,000 or they will double the rent if the lease is renewed. If the town bought the Annex, which Mercier said does not meet department’s space preferences, the building will still require renovations as part of its change of use.

Many residents at the March 25 session expressed discontent with the building’s layout and price tag. Members of the Council on Aging, like Gloria Vivier, said the Senior Center portion of the building would not fit all the various programs. Other residents, like Jeremy LaPoint, said the funds should go to other capital needs in town, like Granby Junior Senior High School.

“I’m looking at this and I’m saying ‘You’re going to stick all those old people in a little space and you’re going to give the building officials and town collectors and assessors in big offices?’” Brian Housechild said. “That just doesn’t make sense.”

Some town members, like Dennis Gould and Finance Committee Chair John Libra, supported the project. Both residents spoke about the positive impact of having all municipal offices under one roof, making it much easier to conduct business in town.

“We in this town never do anything correct. We always Band-Aid every project that we do,” Gould said. “You go to any office that we have, we don’t have adequate space. I understand that the Senior Center is not ideal, and that the new space is not ideal. It’s 1,000% better than what you have here.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.