buying the Perini building
So the Mayor wants to convince the Council to buy the Perini building for 12.9 million. The building is assessed for 10.98 million in 2019 and an independent appraiser valued the building at 11 million.
I think the Mayor is correct in saying there's really no other building big enough to move all of what is in the Memorial building.
According to the CFO, the operating costs would be around 464k a year. The school department already is in the there and has signed a rental agreement for 39k a year, for 5 years. The estimated costs to rehab the Memorial building would be about 28 million.
There's some different thoughts about the purchase of the Perini building from the counsel. The one that I'm most concerned with is the contamination under the property. The DEP has placed an limited use on the property that bars certain types of activities by children because of the contamination issues. No one can break pavement on the property without a licensed site professional who can alert the DEP and over-see the soil management. This part concerns me for the future. If the ground needs to be remediated, it could cost a lot of money if the City wanted to expand the buildings. More answers should be answered before investing in such a huge proposal.
And then there are those who think the seat of Government should stay at the Memorial building. Now that we no longer have Town Meeting, there's no need to have such a large space that goes unused most of the year.
It will be discussed at tonight's council meeting.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:21 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Should be a good show tonight. Napoleon and King Henry the 8th likely have been rehearsing their lines all week.
that's funny
http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/1910?channel=1
the Perini lease/purchase starts at 1:20 and ends at 3:09
Seems like there's very little collaboration going on with the SC and the Mayor.
The council will take the subject up again next meeting, but it's clearer now, the purchase of the Perini building is in question for various reasons, one of which Christine brought up about flood insurance. IMO, the contamination under that place restricts what the City can do there and would be a costly problem that the City would have to pay for if expanding the buildings or even paving the parking lots.
Before that is the storm water management overview presentation. By July we will know what each homeowner, business and Town owned buildings will have to pay to manage our storm water. It will be another enterprise fund (like water and sewer is now)that will be a separate part of DPW. From what I gather, the funding will be for capital and operating expenses. I'm guessing around 2 million dollars a year spread out over the entire Town.
Jim if there is already contamination there, why is the school department even housed there already?
This is a bad move by the city to buy a sight they KNOW is contaminated and use if for school department, where kids will most likley sometime be in that building. Does the city have a plan in place for a response should someone who works in the building, or visits the building and get sick sues us? Why in gad's name are we even considering a building with contamination issues?
No kids are at the building now. And I agree... the contamination issue is a big issue. Perhaps not for office people, but kids are a different story.
As Phil O explained, there can't be a playground, day care center, no gardens per the DEP rules. Perini already has done a bunch of remediation there years ago and the DEP says the building can only be used for offices.
and if they want to break the hot top, they will need to have a Licensed Site Professional there at all time to remediate the soils.
Whatever is underground may pose a risk to kids if they are spending a lot of time there, similar to Mary Dennison park.
I had no idea about flood insurance which is always going up and since the property is close to a stream, I guess I see now why the insurance should also be a factor the Mayor and council look into.
From watching the meeting last night, it appears the council will try to get the Mayor to look at buildings in other areas of town, close to the Memorial building, if there are any other options.
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