Board OKs New CFAL Renovation Plan; Will Require $1.85M Debt Exclusion

CHATHAM – The select board hopes that by controlling costs while adding back some key features, they’ve come up with the special sauce that will help a Center for Active Living renovation to finally satisfy the tastes of voters.

 On the advice of an ad hoc working group, the select board on Dec. 3 endorsed a much-revised plan to renovate the senior center on Stony Hill Road. For an additional $1.85 million, added to the $5 million appropriated earlier this year, the building will get a new, low-maintenance exterior and key improvements inside designed to improve the safety, accessibility and usefulness of the CFAL’s program spaces.

 Planning will now continue on the project, yielding a project ready to go out to bid in February. The town will then select a winning bid from a general contractor and bring a firm project number to the May annual town meeting, rather than an estimate. If two-thirds of voters approve, the measure will be considered in a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion ballot vote three days later. If voters give the thumbs up, construction would begin in July, with programs for seniors taking place in temporary quarters until mid-summer 2027.

 The select board and town manager praised the CFAL working group, which developed its recommendations over the course of nine meetings. The group was assembled when revised project estimates came back nearly $2.7 million over the early $5 million budget, which was based on conceptual plans. The project team then proposed a series of deep cuts to try and bring the renovation back under budget, but found that it needed to eliminate key features — like the removing the support columns in the middle of meeting rooms — in order to do so. The working group reassessed the project’s basic needs and recommended adding back seven of those key features.

 “I think we’ve landed on a place that will hopefully be considered attractive and prudent by town meeting and the taxpayers,” working group member and finance committee chair Stephen Daniel said. The goal was to keep costs under control without compromising the utility of the building. The restored CFAL features aim to “enhance its long-term functionality and reduce its long-term operating and maintenance costs,” he said.

 By adding new steel support beams, crews will be able to remove the existing support columns that obstruct views and limit use of the upstairs multipurpose room as well as the exercise room, adult day room and lobby in the basement. Working group member Rob Stello, a builder, said it makes sense to remove all of the problem columns rather than some of them.

 “The equipment and everything is on this jobsite,” he said. “So looking at it from a building point of view, if you’re ever going to do it and you’re going to do it right, while everything’s there, the cheapest way you’re going to do it is to do it now.” 

 Rather than upgrading the exterior siding and windows only where work was being done, the new plan calls for an entirely new building envelope using energy efficient windows and cementboard siding that mimics wood but requires very little maintenance. 

 The plan includes a “hybrid” kitchen, which will greatly improve the usability for in-house dining programs but which stops short of a comprehensive kitchen renovation. Stello said the goal was to be forward-looking. “You’d probably end up doing it later, and you’d end up doing damage to the part you already did,” he said.

 Working group member Stuart Smith, a select board member, said the initial cost-cutting generated “savings that weren’t really savings. They were just going to be postponed projects that we would’ve had to have done down the road,” he said. “The prudent time frame to do that is when we’ve got the building torn apart.”

 The new plan includes a simpler reconfiguration of the parking lot, providing better traffic flow and improved separation from vehicle traffic at the adjacent condominiums. The number of spaces will be increased from 32 to around 42 to 45 spaces, architect Kurt Raber said. 

 The latest project cost estimate is $6,853,804, or $1.85 million higher than the initial $5 million appropriation. The funding plan, Finance Director Carrie Mazerolle said, is to use around $500,000 in free cash with the balance funded by a one-time capital exclusion. The strategy would add between $185 and around $300 to property tax bills for a single year, saving prolonged interest payments over 15 or 20 years under a long-term borrowing scenario.

 Select board Chair Dean Nicastro said his own tax bill would increase by a couple of hundred dollars, “but that’s what it takes to make something happen.” The capital exclusion strategy “saves hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest,” he noted.

 Board member Jeffrey Dykens, a strong proponent of previous plans to build a new senior center, said the current plan makes sense and meets the functional needs of the CFAL.

 “I’m tickled. I’d be more tickled if it was a gleaming $13 million structure,” he said, but “that’s history.”

 Smith said the working group now needs to focus on public education to let voters know about the project and how it will be funded. Voters will be glad to finally have a firm project number to consider, he said.

 “The bid-in-hand approach, it’s a sea change on how we approach projects. Personally, I think it’s going to reassure town meeting that it’s a real number,” he said. Smith said he also favors creation of a standing committee to oversee building projects, as the town had years ago. 

 “We can learn from this, I think,” Nicastro said.

 The select board also directed staff to develop a warrant article for the annual town meeting which would extend the sewer connection up Stony Hill Road for an earlier-than-scheduled connection to the renovated CFAL. If approved, the measure could save the town the cost of upgrading the property’s existing Title 5 septic system, which will be decommissioned when the sewer mains eventually reach the neighborhood.