WILLIAMSTOWN — Tentative plans to ask voters to approve funding for a new town garage on Town Meeting Day are at least temporarily stuck at a key step, though Town Manager Jackie Higgins is hoping that will change.
Higgins, who briefed the Williamstown Select Board on the status of the project during its Monday night meeting, said some threshold decisions have been made by a recently appointed committee that is waiting to hear back from three architectural firms.
According to Higgins, the committee has asked Bread Loaf Corporation, of Middlebury; Black River Design, of Montpelier; and Essex-based Aldrich & Elliott to provide a price for preparing bid-ready documents, as well as an estimated cost of constructing a new town garage on the site of the current facility.
After reviewing plans for highway garages in Royalton and Chelsea, Higgins said the committee favored a larger version of the six-bay facility in Royalton. That garage was designed by Bread Loaf and built in 2003.
Based on Williamstown’s needs, the committee is interested in a building that is 10 feet wider than the garage in Royalton and includes two extra bays.
Higgins said she is hoping to have proposals in hand in coming weeks that can be vetted by the committee when it meets Dec. 7 and presented to the board for its consideration on Dec. 12.
“Right now, we can’t move any further until we get those (estimates),” she said.
Higgins said an eight-bay version of the Royalton garage, would fit on the site of the current three-bay facility in Williamstown.
“Instead of reinventing the wheel, maybe we could save some money on the design because Bread Loaf has already pretty much done the design,” she said. “The layout is pretty much the same.”
In addition to potentially saving money, Higgins said piggy-backing off previously vetted plans could save time and keep plans for a March bond vote on track.
The board, which has earmarked nearly $343,000 of the funds it received under the American Rescue Plan Act for the project, knows additional funding will be required, but absent an informed estimate from an architect, it doesn’t know how much more voters should be asked to finance.
Higgins is hoping the board will have an answer to that question by the time it needs to finalize the Town Meeting Day warning in late-January.
The town could then solicit bids from contractors while waiting for voters to weigh in. That would keep plans to raze and replace existing garage during the upcoming construction season on track.
The board made replacing the undersized, functionally obsolete, and structurally deficient garage a priority in March when it earmarked nearly $343,000 in ARPA funds the town received to help cover the cost of that project.
Higgins told board members $369,000 of the pandemic-related funding hasn’t yet been allocated even as the Williamstown Youth Sports Association signaled it might be interested in asking for some of that money.
Installing lights on Saldi Field is one project under consideration, though even proponents flinched at an estimate it could cost up to $220,000 to complete that work. Board members were told WYSA is looking to cut that cost significantly through in-kind labor, and even if it can’t there are some smaller projects — from benches and fencing to insulating the concession that might be worthy of ARPA funding.
The board hasn’t decided what to do with that money, and likely won’t until after it has a better handle on how much replacing the town garage could cost.
david.delcore @timesargus.com
