Eddington residents approve expansion

EDDINGTON – After a few minor questions, nearly all of the residents at Tuesday’s special town meeting quickly endorsed spending $950,000 to expand the municipal building that the town and Fire Department have shared for 32 years.

The entire meeting lasted just about five minutes and was attended by 60 or so residents.

“The town made a very good decision,” Chairwoman Joan Brooks said after the meeting. “We’ve been cramped for quite a while now.”

The expansion design plans, created by A.E. Hodsdon of Waterville, include an added structure on both the right and left sides of the current 3,500-square-foot municipal building that will add a total of 6,500 square feet of new space.

The additions will create a new town hall on the left side of the current building and a three-firetruck bay on the right, while renovating the existing town hall space for the fire department.

With an estimated maximum interest rate of 4.98 percent, the town estimates the project will cost $76,101 annually for the next 20 years.

The project’s costs will be offset by several items in this year’s budget that have or will expire at the end of the year, leaving residents to pay approximately $12,601 for the building payment next year, Town Manager Russell Smith has stressed.

Project manager Mark McCluskey said his task was to create a facility that could meet the needs of the growing community, while keeping costs low.

“It will provide a better means for the town to serve the community,” he said after the vote.

The new municipal addition will include a meeting room, three offices, a records vault and kitchen.

In addition to the new bay, the old town office space will be renovated into offices, a laundry and bunk rooms for the Fire Department, while retaining the existing bays for the brush truck and rescue vehicle.

“We need space,” Fire Chief Alan Boynton said after residents approved the project. “The hope is it will last another 20 to 30 years. At this point, it gives us more space to do our jobs.”

The proposed bunks are for live-in student firefighters who help to quicken response times just because someone is already in the fire station, he said.

While the project was approved by residents, the final designs are not set in stone, Smith said.

“There will probably be some changes with this design,” he said.

Included on the list of possible changes are switching the vault area with an office to add space for records, an item discussed during a public hearing held on the project earlier this month.

The addition also will solve code violations and make the building Americans with Disabilities Act compliant, Councilor Donn Goodwin said.

“It think it’s going to be an asset for the town,” he said.