Longmeadow Community House
Reminder Publishing file photo
LONGMEADOW — Consideration into the future use of town buildings was given during the Longmeadow Select Board meeting on Nov. 17.
In May, Longmeadow partnered with Fuss & O’Neill, a Springfield based engineering firm, on a $95,800 contract to assess the improvement needs of the vacated Town Hall, Community House and Old Town Hall. Fuss & O’Neill also launched a community input survey in June to guide their planning efforts with the needs of the community in mind.
In the input survey, around 86% of participants were familiar with the buildings and provided suggestions to preserve the historical integrity of the buildings, while renovating them with modernized interiors for community focused activities. The addition of ADA accessibility features was also a must-have.
Mike Nelson, an associate with Fuss & O’Neill, presented the property condition report at the Select Board meeting.
“For the condition reports, we paired with architects from Amenta Emma,, who have done work in town before,” Nelson said. “We walked the properties with town staff from multiple departments to do an assessment of what it would take to get these buildings up to code, and what it would take to get these buildings up to code from a maintenance perspective and a capital investment perspective.”
Nelson determined that all three buildings are in fair condition but require a lot of work for modernization and accessibility standards.
Across the three buildings, the PCR estimates the “perfect renovation” to be around $12 million, and while not everything is required exactly how it’s estimated, according to Nelson, bringing the buildings up to code so they can be usable by the town is still a significant investment.
For the Community House, major upgrades to the architecture needs to be done for safety and accessibility, such as an entire repointing of the exterior brick along with the addition of ramps and an elevator. Renovations to the hallways, doorways and parking also need to be done to begin meeting ADA compliancy. The building also requires major mechanical, electrical and plumbing repairs, such as a sprinkler system estimated at $480,000 and an HVAC replacement for $725,000, bringing the total renovations to anywhere from $3.5 million to $5 million.
The vacated Town Hall at 20 Williams St. and Old Town Hall at 417 Longmeadow St. present similar challenges to the Community House. Major architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing work is required, and the existing building envelopes make it difficult to renovate for ADA compliance. The vacated Town Hall is estimated at $2.7 million and Old Town Hall for less than $1 million due to the building’s smaller size.
With the cost estimates back from Fuss and O’Neill, the town is now challenged with guiding their potential investment by deciding the future of all three buildings.
Select Board member Andrew Lam said he believes that everything on the renovation lists might be worth doing to ensure the buildings can be used by the town for another 100 years, but if there isn’t a major necessity for the building space at this time, Lam said he doesn’t want to see them go unused for years to come.
“We’re lucky that we have plenty of space,” Lam said. “We don’t have an immediate need, but there’s a chance some day in the distant future where the Community House and Town Hall are valuable to us decades from now, but we don’t know why right now. I think there’s a lot of opportunity cost in those years that we’re wasting, and they’re basically abandoned or underused.”
One of the thoughts that came to Josh Levine, Select Board chair, is if these buildings could be attractive to a private developer. Nelson advises as well that a private developer could be a more economically viable route to explore.
“If we’re not taking this on, if we either sell the buildings or lease them out and somebody else does the work, they’ll probably have it with a different goal in mind with revamping the buildings,” Levine said. “It’s a really good location for all three of these.”
When asked about the town maintaining ownership in the survey, responses leaned much more towards keeping the Community House, with only 23.3% open to private ownership. People in the survey tended to care less about the future of Old Town Hall, which Lam said makes a point of in discussing a future where one of the buildings could be sold or leased.
Residents highlighted in the survey the need to increase Longmeadow’s tax base, which could be achieved through selling the buildings and private development. Income could also be generated through long term leases while the town maintained ownership.
A major issue the Select Board recognized is the high cost of the renovations and how citizens of the town will perceive it, especially with an ongoing concern brought up prior in the meeting about upticks in the water bill.
The board also recognized it as an important decision for the town and something they may need the town’s input in to decide what the future of Longmeadow will look like.
“The more brains the better on this,” Levine said. “We got pretty good survey results here and we know people are interested in this, which is good, but now we can get it a bit more concrete.”
As of right now, the Select Board and town will move towards deciding a use and if renovation is something they will begin to take on.
