BEVERLY, MA — A series of public hearings on mechanisms to fund major capital projects across the city — including the City Hall renovation and temporary location of municipal staff during that renovation, the library HVAC system replacement and sidewalk infrastructure improvements — spurred questions during Monday’s City Council meeting on how and when to determine the precise course of the projects that have been in the planning and discussion stages for months.
The proposal to shift $2.5 million in funding involving the city-acquired Family Dollar location as the temporary home of City Hall during the renovation led to questions about whether that would be the most cost-effective course of action for the city, while a funding mechanism for the proposed $18 million library renovation led to an expression of urgency to determine whether that project will proceed at all.
“The time has come to make a decision,” city budget analyst Gerry Perry said of the library renovation, which has already been the subject of two public hearings. “I’ve worked a lot on this. I know all of you have worked tremendously on this. Whether you agree or disagree about (whether to do it) is irrelevant. We can’t really be putting this off much longer. This is a lot going on here. We’ve got to get going on this stuff.
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“So I do recommend as your budget analyst that whatever you decide to do you start next week. I think that’s pretty important.”
City Council Chair Julie Flowers has said that the third extension of the library public hearing would be the only item on the agenda for the April 8 special Council meeting to give it ample dime for public comment, further questions and discussion, and ultimately a possible vote of the Council to approve the proposal or not.
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The shift of $2.5 million toward the Family Dollar refitting for municipal offices from free cash is meant to pay off a large portion of the $8 million store and parking lot purchase without the use of borrowing to the extent possible.
A public art project has been commissioned for the storefront, which should be in place within the next six to eight weeks, while a final determination has yet to be made whether the space can be suitable to rehome City Hall staff during the renovation as well as library services in the former Rent-a-Center location.
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Beverly Budget and Finance Director Bryant Ayers said alternative space for City Hall offices would cost about $500,000 a year in rent for the estimated two-year project. The alternative locations would likely be in either Cherry Hill or Cummings Park.
“We can see what it would cost to go into commercial space somewhere else in town,” Mayor Mike Cahill told the Council. “As we work through what it would cost us to go in across the street (at the former Family Dollar) there is a point above which we won’t go. But we don’t want to vacate the downtown for a year and a half, or more. There’s a downside to that — to the seat of city government to not be here in the downtown. So we don’t want to do that.
“There is a premium in that sense that we should be willing to pay to stay downtown. But it’s got to be manageable and fairly modest. As we work through what it will/would cost to go across the street that stuff will be weighing in.”
Cahill reiterated that the preference is to stay downtown but that “there would be a price tag to staying downtown that would be too much to pay (to retrofit for the Family Dollar location into office space.)”
“What that dollar figure is I can’t say tonight,” he said. “Once we get a better handle on what work needs doing and what cost that’s going to be — it may be a modest difference one way or the other. If it’s a striking difference in terms of costing too much more to go across the street that would probably make the decision for us.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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