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FARMINGTON – The commissioners ordered an appraisal of the Church Street Commons today, in an preliminary step toward potentially purchasing the property for use by county departments.
Planners with the firm Smith Reuter Lull Architects have drawn up schematics for the 10,000 square foot, three-floor building, located across Church Street from the Franklin County Courthouse. The plan currently being explored would move the registry of deeds and probate court offices into the first and second floors of the commons. The basement, after some modification, would be used to house dispatch services, while a small annex area would be the new home for the Franklin County Emergency Management Agency.
Meanwhile, the courthouse building would be renovated to move the District Attorney’s Office facilities out of the basement. Space freed up in the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department’s office building, located near the jail, by the removal of dispatch would be used by the department for additional offices and storage. That would represent an inexpensive short-term fix for the FCSD’s space concerns, according to the architects, rather than a long-term solution.
This newest incarnation of the county facility plans is the most inexpensive yet; costing roughly $2 million to purchase and renovate the commons, as well as some relatively minor renovations in the courthouse and jail-site office building. The last plan, which envisioned the construction of a 9,400 square foot expansion to the office building to accommodate dispatch and FCEMA, would have cost roughly $5 million.
“That makes it pretty attractive,” John Cleveland, who is working with Smith Reuter Lull, said.
Commissioner Fred Hardy of New Sharon, balked at the estimated $100,000 cost of relocating dispatch to the commons, saying that he felt a small expansion to the jail site could accommodate that service for the same price.
“I’m certainly not convinced that [moving dispatch] is the right thing to do,” Hardy said.
“It makes more sense to leave it where it is,” Commissioner Meldon Gilmore of Kingfield, agreed.
Architects agreed to present plans for a modest expansion of the sheriff’s department office building, to allow dispatch additional room, at the next commissioners’ meeting.
However, commissioners did approve hiring Goulet & Associates, Inc. of Lewiston, to conduct a commercial appraisal of the Church Street Commons. That appraisal is expected to cost $3,600. Commissioners also approved to begin the application process with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program for a loan. That process is non-binding and will not cost the county anything at this stage.
Cleveland and the architects are recommending a June 2010 county-wide referendum vote on the facility plan, as the owners of the commons are not taking on new tenants as the process moves forward. Commissioners, on the other hand, reiterated concerns that the process not be seen as rushed. The next available referendum vote would be in November.
A June 8 referendum vote would require the referendum ballot language, and therefore final version of the facility plan, be set by April 6.
