Old hall given a new face

LAMOINE — Lamoine residents recently celebrated the renovation of the community’s town hall, a renovation project that served to preserve part of the town’s history as well.

Constructed in the late 1800s, the frame building was updated this summer and fall with the addition of a septic system and well, a new furnace and windows, and an addition at the rear of the building for storage.

A building central to Lamoine’s history, the town hall building once served as a one-room schoolhouse. Selectman Dick Davis attended the school in the late 1940s. Another selectman, Evelyn Farrell, remembers using the building for basketball games when she was in high school.

The completed renovation project, and the recent construction of the town’s new fire station, marked the end of more than four years of debate in Lamoine about the best solution to its municipal building needs.

Nearly a year ago townspeople turned down a proposal to construct a combined municipal building and fire station at a different location on Route 184. In a record turnout of about 200 people, voters at a special town meeting last January opposed the proposal to spend an estimated $500,000 on a completely new facility.

With information presented at that meeting that the town hall site could support a septic system and included enough property for expansion, residents instructed the town’s volunteer building committee to pursue designs and cost estimates for renovation and expansion of the building.

At the annual town meeting last May, residents voted to expend $50,000 to renovate the present town hall and to appropriate $125,000 to construct a new fire station behind the old facility.

Joe Hayes, Lamoine’s administrative assistant, said at Sunday’s open house that the town hall renovation project was completed for $48,500 and the fire house project for about $125,000. The town borrowed $87,500 for the two projects and appropriated the same amount from the surplus account.

For the past 30-40 years, the building served as the polling location and became the town’s administrative offices in the early 1980s. Weekly meetings of the town’s several boards, including the selectmen and planning boards, are held at the building.

An open house at the town’s new fire station is expected to be held in January.