With new marching orders from last week’s Special Town Meeting, Selectmen on Tuesday directed Town Administrator Tim Bragan to estimate the relative cost of moving Town Hall employees to one of three sites within Harvard or adopting a novel fourth option proposed Tuesday night by a Harvard resident. The vote was unanimous.
The three locations under consideration include office space in Devens, Appleworks in Harvard, and the old town library on Fairbank Street.
Both MassDevelopment and Appleworks submitted bids in response to a July request for proposals.
As a town-owned building, the old library has always been an option, but a new nonprofit organization, Center on the Common, has asked the town to lease it the space for use as a community center. At Special Town Meeting, voters authorized the Board of Library Trustees and Selectmen to take the actions necessary to enter into such an agreement.
But it was a fourth option that caught the attention of Selectmen this week. Paul Green of Old Littleton Road once again proposed, as he did at Special Town Meeting, that the town consider renting temporary office trailers. They’d have to be handicapped accessible and insulated, he said, but “if one of the criteria is to keep offices as close to the center of town as possible, there are plenty of spaces where they could be located,” Green said.
Green said he could “think of several spaces that are usable, that are within a couple minutes’ walk [of current Town Hall], are controlled by the town and would make acceptable places to put temporary office space.”
Among those he cited were the town parking lot between Bromfield School and the Congregational Church, the high school parking lot below the new town library, Hildreth House, and the space between the Congregational Church and the General Store, which will become free once the new town sewer replaces the septic system currently located there.
“Paul Green made one heck of a recommendation,” said Selectman Ron Ricci, when the board discussed relocation options later. Given the uncertainty over when space might be needed in the coming year, trailers would provide some desirable flexibility. It could be done with “two double-wides with wheels,” he said.
With four options on the table, all within Harvard town lines, Chairman Lucy Wallace proposed that the board look no further, although Town Meeting gave them the latitude to look outside the town, as long as sites were within an eight-mile radius.
Bragan said he was prepared to develop cost estimates for each option, but it would be up to the Selectmen to decide “what is best for the town,” as Town Meeting had voted.
“If you can assess the costs for us, then we can assess the cost-benefits trade-offs,” agreed Selectman Bill Johnson. “The trade-offs are our responsibility.”
