NORTH STONINGTON — Officials have earmarked $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to serve as a primary funding source to allow the community to move forward with the demolition of the former middle school wing of the North Stonington Education Center, but questions remain regarding just how expensive the project would be.
The Board of Finance voted last week to earmark the funding, which was done at the request of First Selectman Robert Carlson on behalf of the Board of Selectmen. Member Sarah Nelson opposed the request, saying that she did not see an advantage to approving the funding without knowing the full cost for demolition.
Carlson said the town hoped to move quickly in bringing the project to a town meeting in April along with RFPs, however, and said he would be able to use the guaranteed source of funding to limit impact to taxpayers. The $1 million will not cover the entire cost of the demolition, he warned, but would still cut into project costs considerably.
“This will go a long way towards making a dent in (demolition) costs,” Carlson said. “If we have it earmarked, then it will not be used for anything else and if we don’t move forward in taking down that one-story wing, the money would come back before the board for reallocation.”
Plans to demolish the one-story wing of the North Stonington Education Center, located at 298 Norwich-Westerly Road, began to take shape in late January after two Community Conversation workshops — a morning workshop focused on how to address the North Stonington Education Center vacancy while an afternoon session took aim at the best way to utilize pandemic relief funding — with the nearly 50 residents in attendance at each session showing overwhelming support for using the ARPA funding to take the former middle school wing, known as the one-story wing, down for good.
Carlson noted that the town has sought legal advice and determined that use of the funding to offset losses would qualify, allowing this to be an approved use of the funding. The town had previously allocated $268,000 for arts and economic initiatives, and would be left with just $150,000 in remaining ARPA funds if the $1 million is used on demolition.
The overall cost of demolition is still unknown, Carlson said, although it was estimated at $1.1 million during the school modernization project, although those funds were reallocated to address other unanticipated costs associated with the project. With inflation, those costs are only expected to continue to increase in the immediate future.
“We are likely looking at something in the range of $1.4 million to maybe 1.5 million,” he said. “We started a few years ago at $1.1 million and would expect based on the market that there would be about a 3% increase per year.”
Carlson said having the approval now starts the process, allows for planning and will help to get taxpayers behind the effort. The impact would be financial relief to the taxpayer, Carlson said, and would fit into the category of towns utilizing funds to offset operational costs up to $10 million that were impacted as a result of lost revenues.
The space left after demolition would then be renovated as a town green space, while a tenant or buyer would be sought to fill the two-story wing of the building. The town has been in negotiations with an interested party, officials confirmed, but further information has not been released and no deal is in place.
Nelson said while she appreciates Carlson’s effort to get the project moving forward and agrees with the importance of doing so quickly to limit ongoing maintenance costs associated with the North Stonington Education Center, it is important to have all the information before acting.
She said until she knows the full cost and can justify using the $1 million to properly address the issue, the Board of Selectmen would still need to request allocation of additional funding and ARPA money could be approved then.
“Right now there is a lot we don’t know; whether the project is going to be $1.3 million, $1.5 million, $2 million… we do not have all the information. Without a clear line of sight, I just can’t approve something just yet,” she said.
