HADLEY — A staggered construction schedule approved by the Select Board this week will allow the town to break ground on a new senior center in March followed by work on a new library within two months.
The Select Board on Wednesday unanimously agreed to the accelerated schedule for the projects on Middle Street following a recommendation from Phil Palumbo, a project manager with Colliers International and the owner’s project manager for the senior center.
This decision means that the former Hooker School Building, which houses the current senior center and other town departments, will be demolished next spring, several months before the new $7.1 million senior center is open.
Palumbo said a staggered bid schedule will have the senior center construction documents out in mid-to-late January for contractors, and construction beginning in early-to-mid March in the field behind the school. The library construction documents would then be available for bid, with the $8 million library breaking ground six to eight weeks later in early May, following the razing of the Hooker building, according to the plans. The costs of this demolition are covered in the state grant obtained by the library.
It is uncertain if the projects would have the same contractor, but that could happen and would be beneficial to the town, Palumbo said.
“I’d like to think we’ll get really competitive bidding that way,” Palumbo said.
Although there had been talk about combining the projects into one and issuing one set of construction documents, Palumbo said that may not keep the projects on budget and could add to complications, noting it is “extremely late in the game” to make them one project.
Meanwhile, the Select Board also recommended that the senior center, once the Hooker building is gone, use space at the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.
Town Administrator David Nixon said he has had conversations with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield and that the town will have to negotiate with Colebrook Realty in Springfield on the arrangement, as well as getting an OK from the church’s parish council.
The board agreed to have Hadley Media, which is in the basement at Hooker School, relocate to the second floor at the Goodwin Library, while the Planning Board, which holds meetings at Hooker, will return to Town Hall. Its many paper documents could be stored on the second floor at Goodwin, as well.
“All the papers and files and things like that, we’ll figure out where they can go,” said Select Board Chairwoman Joyce Chunglo. “The people are what we really needed to settle on tonight.”
The board put off a decision on hiring a town employee coordinator to oversee both projects, as well as the building of the North Hadley fire substation, which will also be under construction in the next year.
