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Shaftsbury adds architect to Community Center Development Committee

Posted: December 1, 2024

SHAFTSBURY - Town officials have added an architect to the board looking at options for a community center, and problems with Cole Hall have them considering the option to moving the municipal offices to another site.

Town Administrator Paula Iken presented an update on the work of the Community Center Development Committee at Monday's Select Board meeting. She read a statement she had prepared.

"Since the forming of the Community Center Development Committee [CCDC], our goal has been to create a plan for a community center on the campus around Cole Hall, based on the results of the community survey," she said. "Over the months of our research and imagining, serious problems have come into focus with Cole Hall due to the bottom floor leaking and mold issues. The issues have become more complex, and it has become more difficult to create more office space to accommodate our staff."

At the same time the CCDC has spent months exploring different types of construction for a community center, with modalities ranging from stick build to modular structures.

"We've actually had guest stars come and talk to us about these things and really getting into the research and wanting to do the best thing and make the best recommendation of building a community center and preservation and uses for Cole Hall," Iken said. "It has become clear that we would need to spend more than we have if we are to preserve Cole Hall, which is actually a very important thing to be doing. All that said, now we have begun to look into the possibility of purchasing the former Shaftsbury Medical Building to be used as municipal offices, plus other uses for the community."

She added, "This is very preliminary, and the CCDC hopes to make the final recommendation about a community center in the very near future."

The former medical building is located at 677 Route 7A in South Shaftsbury. Dr. David E. King reluctantly closed the Shaftsbury Medical Associates office In June 2022 after lengthy efforts to recruit a new physician to take over the practice proved unsuccessful.

Contacted Tuesday by email, Iken repeated the preliminary nature of this interest: "We are just beginning to explore this as a possibility," she wrote.

At Monday's meeting, Iken said that Shaftsbury resident Ben Benedict, who is an architect, has stepped forward to offer his services and is willing to serve on the CCDC. "I'm asking the Select Board to consider him for additional membership and that role,” Iken said.

Board Chair Naomi Miller noted that Benedict has served in the past on a town facilities committee.

"it seems like it'd be a good idea just to have him on the committee as an architect, but that means changing the structure of the committee, which was very specifically designed to have two members of the public and then a representative from each of the relevant bodies, (including) the Recreation Committee, Planning Commission," she said.

The addition of Benedict would increase the number of voting members on the CCDC to seven. As chair of the Select Board, Miller is a non-voting member.

The Select Board members present voted 3-0 to change the structure of the CCDC to include an architect and 3-0 to appoint Benedict.

Iken said the CCDC members have been doing a lot of imagining of possibilities but need to take this forward.

"We've just been imagining. This is a feat of imagination. But our imagination kind of butts into that wall and then that's where the architect needs to take over," she said. "And go, 'this is what can be done. This is what can't be done.' Because we can imagine all sorts of things, but we don't know the nuts and bolts. We're very lucky that he came forward.”

Over the past year and a half, the Select Board has been purchasing land adjacent to Cole Hall for a a town green and community center. The CCDC has been directed to have concrete recommendations for the Select Board by January 2025.

About $558,000 of local funding for these projects depends on a resident vote at Town Meeting in March 2025. The Select Board will ask-voters to approve use of this fund balance to create a new reserve fund for the community projects. If the vote is positive, the funds will then be included in the fiscal 2026 spending plan.

These funds originated from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Because of a change in federal rules, the town faced a deadline to spend these funds on shovel-ready projects by the end of this year. However, to get around this, and have more time to plan and apply for matching grants, the Select Board instead applied $558,149 retroactively to payroll, creating a fund balance of that amount in the general fund.

Improvement to historic Cole Hall, current site of the town offices, have been part of the focus of the CCDC, but this has been complicated because of an ongoing problem with rainwater leaking into the structure.

Compliments of: The Bennington Banner
Posted/Author: Mark Rondeau

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