From left: Ginger Quarles, Pat Jennings, and Chris Ready listen to options laid out at the Feb. 17 Municipal Buildings Committee forum. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
When the selectmen hold a public hearing Tuesday on a request for funds to start planning renovations to Town Hall and Hildreth House, they will be looking for advice on not one, but two competing warrant articles.
The first, inserted at the request of the Municipal Buildings Committee (MBC)—the committee appointed by the Board of Selectmen (BOS) to study the matter—asks the town to pay for “schematic designs” in the coming fiscal year to refurbish and expand Town Hall, and to create a permanent senior center at Hildreth House, the current home of the Council on Aging (COA) and its programs. The estimated cost of that work is $225,000, though the amount is not stated in the draft warrant article.
This week, however, the Press learned that a second version of Article 18 has been proposed and circulated to the selectmen. The new version leaves the location of a town senior center unspecified and makes funding contingent on a town vote in favor of a debt override to pay for it. Like the MBC article, it does not state an amount.
The two articles will get a hearing on Tuesday, March 1, at the regular biweekly BOS meeting, which is being held in Volunteers Hall at the public library to accommodate a larger than usual turnout.
Contacted by phone, MBC Chairman Ron Ostberg said he was surprised. “Our committee has done a lot of work and feels very strongly about its recommendation,” he said. “But there’s some attempt being made to make this as onerous as possible.”
In an e-mail, Selectwoman Marie Sobalvarro, who is a past member of the Finance Committee, confirmed that a debt exclusion is not necessary to fund architectural designs and could be paid for with free cash or stabilization money.
Behind the maneuvering over how to respond to the work of the MBC is concern over the ultimate cost of refurbishing the three buildings on the Common that are owned by the town: Town Hall, the old library and Hildreth House. After studying the matter for a year, the MBC has recommended that the town keep ownership of all three building and renovate them over the next decade to support a vision in which the town center remains “the municipal, cultural, and institutional heart of Harvard.”
The MBC would like to spend the 2012 fiscal year taking a closer look at two proposals for Town Hall and a plan for Hildreth House. The cost of the Town Hall schematics is estimated to be $115,000, while the Hildreth House designs would cost an estimated $70,000. One approach to Town Hall would be to simply upgrade its “envelope” and systems—including a new elevator—and to reconfigure its existing offices. The second floor area would be cleaned up and a space would be created for meetings of the selectmen in the area in front of the current stage. Total cost is estimated at roughly $2.3 million.
A second, more ambitious plan for Town Hall calls for an addition to house new offices and a town vault, and a restoration of the second floor to its original role as a place for public performances and meetings, with a seating capacity of 250 or more. The cost of this scheme is estimated between $4 and $4.5 million.
In addition to urging action on Town Hall, the MBC has also recommended that Hildreth House be remodeled to support a permanent senior center. The estimated cost would be roughly $2.3 million, though, as with Town Hall, the purpose of doing the design work is to more firmly establish that number. Left out of consideration for the time being is the old library, which is currently being evaluated for use as a cultural center. The MBC did study the option of locating the senior center there, but found the location to be unsuitable and the cost greater than that of a renovation of Hildreth House. The COA has also stated its opposition to that plan.
“It’s important to understand,” says Ostberg, “that the committee is not committing the town to any particular path. We’re proposing first steps in what will be a very long process.”
A rough timeline presented by the MBC at its public forum last Thursday shows that any work on Town Hall would not occur before 2013, with work on Hildreth House following in 2014 at the earliest. Between now and then, Ostberg says, the committee has allowed plenty of time for discussion, design work and, most importantly, the development of funding packages—public-private partnerships—to help lighten the burden on taxpayers.
The article recommended to the selectmen by the MBC had the unanimous support of its five members, as well as COA support for keeping the senior center at Hildreth House. As for the alternate version, although the Press was able to obtain a draft of its contents, we were unable to determine its origin. Town Administrator Tim Bragan was on vacation and could not be reached.
