SOUTHAMPTON — As the town election nears on Tuesday, uncertainty is brewing among many residents over a town proposal to construct a new public safety complex.

Many have expressed agreement that better infrastructure is needed for the town’s police and fire departments, but the new complex comes with a price tag that has some community members anxious about their taxes.

The project is estimated to cost about $28 million before interest. At a special Town Meeting in March, voters approved an initial $3.2 million debt exclusion for pre-construction architectural and engineering costs. This amount will appear before voters again at the ballot box on Tuesday during the town election. If those costs are approved, the town will later ask for an additional $24.7 million to fund the complex’s construction and building costs.

With interest, current estimates have the project coming in at about $47 million over 30 years. Town officials say that increasing construction costs and more stringent state energy codes in recent years have yielded a much more expensive project than when the public safety complex was first considered years ago, but some residents have concerns that not enough cost-cutting has taken place.

Resident concerns

“With the way the economy is right now, people can’t afford it,” said Southampton resident Diane Jefferis.

Jefferis said that some of her senior neighbors have expressed worries that the added tax burden from the project could push them out of town. While she said that she won’t likely find herself displaced in this way, she said the project will still be costly to her household. She told the Gazette that her home is valued at about $550,000, meaning the $28 million debt exclusion could add around $800 a year to her taxes.

And with a relatively small amount of business activity in town, Jefferis said the burden of these taxes will fall primarily on residents.

“There’s no denying that we need it, but we think they’re going to need to sharpen their pencils and come back with something better,” said another town resident, Art Bergeron.

Bergeron said that he “definitely agrees” that the town needs something better than the current police and fire department facilities, but feels that the cost of the proposed project is “way beyond what we should be paying.”

Resident Jack Perazella also said that he feels the cost of the project is “extravagant,” and worries that “people in town will be substantially impacted by it.”

“Some people are just getting carried away, that’s my impression,” he said of the project.

However, Perazella did note that he feels something needs to be done about the current facilities — albeit, at a lower price point.

“We definitely need a new fire facility,” he said. “That building is about to fall in I think.”

Current facilities aging, dysfunctional

The current fire station, built out of a schoolhouse constructed in 1863, and the current police station, which operated out of the former town hall building constructed in 1904, poses difficulties for the two departments due to space constraints and aging infrastructure.

For example, in the fire station, firefighters driving engine four have to put their gear on at the scene, which can slow down the team’s response to emergencies. But if they put their gear on at the station, it’s almost impossible to get into the engine given the space constraints in the facility’s vehicle bay.

Aside from space, water damage, crumbling bricks and more pose risks and daily inefficiencies for the department.

While the police department has more space than the fire department, operating out of an old town hall building comes with structural inefficiencies for the department. The building is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the evidence room is small, and the two available jail cells are located at the front of the hallway where victims have to walk in order to complete interviews and other administrative tasks, meaning they often have to walk past the person who victimized them in the first place.

Police Chief Ian Illingsworth said there has been some talk in town about renovating the current police department into a public safety complex, but the Public Safety Building Committee has determined that the current police department couldn’t serve as an entire public safety complex. Not only is it not large enough for both departments, but its structure is dysfunctional in serving the police department currently.

Illingsworth said his hope for the new complex is “a layout designed for a police department.”

“The layout of the current police department is not appropriate for a police department,” he said.

However, Illingsworth also noted how intimidating the price tag on the new complex is for many town residents.

“I understand how expensive this looks,” he said. “However, based on the inflation, this is the cost now for a building that will meet the operational and functional needs of the police and fire departments.”

Costs and needs

Jefferis, Bergeron and Perazella each said that they felt the proposed public safety complex contains too many “bells and whistles” that are contributing to its overall cost. The primary concerns they raised surround the complex’s exercise facility, skylights and solar-ready roof.

Town Administrator Scott Szczebak explained that it is a state requirement that the roof of the complex be solar-ready even though there are no current plans to outfit the roof with a solar array. He said that the town requested designers to put forth the “cheapest version of the roof,” and landed at the current $1 million roofing plan.

The complex’s proposed $20,000 skylights, he added, are intended to provide some natural light in the building.

Additionally, Szczebak described the exercise facility as “a couple hundred square feet with some basic equipment,” and said the room would be about 500 square feet, containing equipment like weights, treadmills and resistance bands. It is intended to be a shared space for both departments, and prevent injuries among the public safety workforce.

“It’s getting more and more difficult for them mentally and physically to do their jobs,” Szczebak said of the police and fire departments staff in their current buildings. He added that the exercise room will “pay for itself” in costs saved from injuries prevented.

Even one injury on the job, he said, could cost the town “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in replaced wages, medical expenses, and overtime to cover the injured person’s shifts.

State regulations also require that the project take on an owner’s project manager (OPM), which liaises with the town and architect on the project to ensure it is completed within the right timeframe and budget. The OPM is expected to cost more than $1.5 million.

Szczebak also said that the initial plans for the public safety complex were much pricier. HKT Architects Inc., the town’s contracted architecture company for the project, did an initial needs evaluation which yielded costs of $35-$40 million. But Szczebak said a second study was requested to make the project “as minimalist as possible.”

“We took an axe to the original designs and really cut it down,” he said, explaining that this meant cutting the complex’s size by about 30% with the removal of a bay, some offices and hallway space.

The original design was for a roughly 28,000-square-foot facility, while the new design totals about 21,000 square feet.

“I’ve looked at public safety complexes throughout the state and the price and the square footage is unfortunately what it comes to have a basic, functioning safety complex,” Szczebak said.

Szczebak also said that the town looked at plans to use a “Butler Building” — a pre-engineered, metal building — to cut down on costs and construction time, but found that it wouldn’t meet the requirements for the town’s public safety needs. He said that while Westhampton used this kind of building and built a complex for $4.3 million in 2020, “Westhampton and Southampton have completely different needs,” and Westhampton has roughly one fourth of Southampton’s population.

“We’re struggling with state building codes and building a building that’s going to last a long time and meet the current needs now … we really explored any and all options,” he said.

The town also explains on the project’s webpage that the “essential facility” designation of police and fire departments means that even if the current facilities were to be renovated, it would be difficult and costly to renovate them to the extent that they meet modern-day structural requirements.

The project is intended to be build on the 52-acre 0 College Highway parcel that was acquired after Town Meeting voters approved the $2.2 million purchase. But after a $1 million donation from the Boyle family, the cost of the acquisition to the town was cut in half.

The town is exploring options for the remaining acreage at the property, as the complex is expected to take up only a fraction of it. Ideas have been floated for a new senior center, affordable housing, recreation space and more.

More information on the public safety complex project can be found on the town’s website at townofsouthampton.org. The Town Election will take place at Town Hall from 12-8 p.m.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.