Upon the town’s vote to approve Article 5 of the 10/14/23 Special Town Meeting and the successful 10/21/23 ballot box vote by residents, the Town Manager established a new “DPW & Fire Station Building Committee” to move forward with the town’s desire to construct a new facility/garage for the Department of Public Works and a new Central Fire Station. Both buildings are to be located at the site of the existing DPW facility on Central Street.

This new Building Committee effectively replaced the prior building committee which had invested almost four years of study and preliminary design work into various alternative solutions to address the town’s need to replace the aging fire stations at 1040 Bedford Street and 5 Rockland Street, as well as the old DPW buildings (some dating back to the 1940’s) at 225 Central Street. We are grateful for the dedication and efforts of the prior building committee, which “laid the foundation” for the approval of this project. Town Manager Scott Lambiase appointed five residents to the new Building Committee, each with prior professional experience related to building construction and/or municipal operations:  Shawn Reilly, Robert Persechini, Derek Haimaidi, Roger Woods, and Gordon Slaney. Roger Woods stepped down from the Committee in early July and Alex Bezanson was appointed to fill the vacancy.

The first meeting was held on November 20, 2023 and the Building Committee continues to meet regularly to review and revise the project’s plans, to update budget estimates and to fine tune the expected bidding and construction schedule. The Committee voted to extend the town’s existing contracts with Pomroy Associates as our project manager and with Kaestle Boos Associates (KBA) and Westin & Sampson as our building architects and site designers.

By approving this project, the Town’s voters supported the creation of a municipal public safety complex on Central Street which will contain the existing Police Department (215 Central Street), a new central fire station, and a new DPW garage and yard area. The placement of three different public safety departments at one centralized location will create operational benefits to our town in the future, and the Building Committee recognizes that there will be certain construction coordination issues and scheduling constraints to be addressed throughout the design and construction process. The Building Committee is also aware that the approved project budget limit of $38.5 million (which was reduced immediately prior to town meeting) for the construction of the two municipal buildings and associated site work will be a significant challenge given escalating construction costs and municipal bidding requirements. Nevertheless, the Building Committee is committed to designing detailed plans for a cost-effective and operationally-efficient municipal complex, and it will work with its professional consultants and town officials to seek qualified general contractors who may be able to usher this project forward within its budget constraints.

In a separate vote, Town Meeting voters also approved funding to replace the existing town vehicle fuel island which is currently located in the middle of the DPW’s Central Street site. This limited project was to be undertaken regardless of whether the new DPW/Fire Station project moved forward, because the existing fuel island (2 pumps and underground fuel tanks) is aging and a new fuel island with protected above-ground fuel tanks would be environmentally-appropriate, safer for town employees, and would lessen the Town’s insurance concerns. Thus, the Building Committee has incorporated the location of the new fuel island into the new DPW/Fire Station site plan so that the fuel island will be accessible to all town departments and will use the limited space at Central Street as efficiently as possible.

The Building Committee has formulated a plan to build the new DPW facility, central fire station and new fuel island in two phases: