As expected, plans to seek Community Preservation funds for the renovation of Memorial Hall have been put on pause.
At the request of the Select Board, the Community Preservation Committee Thursday voted 8-0 to table a proposal to spend $15 million to go toward restoring the century-old downtown structure, which is deteriorating.
The total cost of the work is now pegged at about $34 million. That figure, mentioned by Town Manager Derek Brindisi at an earlier Community Preservation Committee meeting, includes additions to the building and enhanced sound and lighting systems. A pared-down restoration has been estimated at $22.6 million.
But the Select Board said Tuesday that it first wants a study to determine whether the project meets the requirements for historic preservation under the state’s Community Preservation Act. The shift came after Brindisi received a mixed response to his request for the $15 million at a Community Preservation Committee meeting on July 23. Members cited concerns about the amount of money and whether some of the proposed work was outside the scope of the Community Preservation Act.
The committee Thursday asked the town to formally withdraw its proposal and come back with a request on Aug. 7 to fund a study. That spending request, should it be recommended by the committee, would be put to Town Meeting in October. The warrant – the list of items Town Meeting is to consider in October – closes Aug. 8.
Bill Keohan, the Select Board’s representative on the committee, said preservation architectural firm Spencer Preservation Group, which worked on the Spire Center restoration, told him a historical analysis of Memorial Hall would cost $80,000.
“Whatever we end up doing at Memorial Hall needs to be based on this information,” Keohan said.
The committee also recommended Thursday that Town Meeting approve $36,000 for a historic preservation study of the Little Red Schoolhouse in Cedarville, $500,000 towards the construction of a $1 million all-access Dark Orchard Trail at Jenney Pond, $281,000 to buy 20.8 acres of cranberry bogs off Beaver Dam Road from the Gilmore Company, $70,000 for Habitat for Humanity to go toward building a single-family house on Strand Avenue, in Manomet (on land already donated by the town), and $644,000 to restore the Training Green between Sandwich and Pleasant streets by adding lighting, irrigation, and making it wheelchair accessible. The green was designated as a training area for the militia in 1711 and was later landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted. The green has been overrun by weeds and its walkways are in disrepair.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.