By AUBRIE GEORGE
The fire-damaged town hall building at Second and Church streets will most likely be demolished as officials continue to mull over options for a new municipal complex.
During last week’s council meeting, Richard Ragan, president of Ragan Design Group, was again present to discuss Council’s options for a new town hall.
Ragan had unveiled several location options for the new facility at Council’s Nov. 8 meeting, including the Acme building on Chester Avenue, a vacant building at 351 New Albany Rd., another vacant building at 1601 Glen Ave. also known as the Schlumberger site, and the existing town hall site.
Last week, however, Council decided to throw the Acme and Schlumberger sites off the table for various reasons, leaving them with a decision to build town hall on one site or split the various functions up between the existing site and the site at 351 New Albany Rd.
One option would relocate administration and police to the New Albany Road building, while renovating the existing library or constructing a new library parallel to Washington Ave. Another option would be to construct a new police and administration building at the former site and renovate the existing library.
No matter what, though, the old town hall building that was damaged in a fire in 2007 will most likely come down because officials said there is no cost-benefit in maintaining it.
“Throwing good money into that building is not a good use of taxpayer dollars,” Mayor Dan Roccato said.
At a previous meeting, Ragan suggested demolition of the building over reusing it, citing heavy-duty rehab work as the reason original bids for the project might have come back several million dollars over budget.
Township Manager Chris Schultz said demolition would most likely happen in January.
Officials said they would go into the existing building to see if any of the elements such as hardware, doors, and air conditioners, could be taken out and re-used in an effort to save money at the new facility.
Council said they hope to make a decision on whether town hall will be in one location or split up between two locations at its next regular meeting. Council is scheduled to meet for their last regular action meeting of the year on Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m.
