WHATELY — Following an extended draft process that dates back to at least February, town officials plan to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for the former Whately Center School within the next week.
While the Selectboard voted last week to issue the RFP for the long-dormant building on Oct. 31, Town Administrator Brian Domina said it may be issued a few days later due to the state’s advertising requirements. The Selectboard is seeking a long-term lease of the Center School, which has been vacant since 2018, with the hope that a lessee will redevelop the 1½-story, 6,183-square-foot building at a reduced rent.
“The lessee would make improvements to the school and in return it would likely be a reduced rent for the term of the lease,” Domina said at last week’s meeting. “The lease, as it is currently written, would give town control over what happens to the building.”
At previous discussions over the last year, Selectboard members have indicated they would like to see some sort of creative reuse of the building on Chestnut Plain Road, such as a restaurant, makerspace or housing. Community members also identified these three possibilities in a 2020 Center School Visioning Committee report.
Any proposed use of the building, Domina noted, must comply with the Agricultural/Residential 1 (AR-1) and Aquifer Protection Overlay zoning districts. The building also falls under a bylaw that identifies it as “historically significant.” Uses allowed under the bylaw include a retail store of up to 2,000 square feet, professional offices, eat-in restaurants, artisan studios and residential uses, as outlined in the draft RFP.
Regardless of the future use of the building, the Whately Historical Society will be allowed to keep, maintain and use the Quonquont Farm milk bottle on the property.
The school was built in 1910 and was designed by prominent Northampton architects — and father-son duo — Roswell and Karl Scott Putnam. The school stopped serving students in 1991 and town offices, as well as the police and health departments, occupied the building until the Town Offices were built and opened at 4 Sandy Lane in 2018, according to the RFP.
The RFP is expected to be open for 90 days and a five-member review committee may be convened to look over proposals. If created, the committee will feature a representative from the Finance Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals, the Selectboard, the Historical Society and one at-large member, who Selectboard member Fred Baron said should be “as immediate a neighbor as possible.”
If no proposals are accepted by the town, Domina said he will need to come back to a Selectboard meeting to “have a discussion about what we do next” regarding the future of the Center School. Other possible options include the town retaining it and all its associated costs, or selling it. Demolition was explored in the Visioning Committee’s report, but destroying a historical town building for a 2020 estimate of $100,000 is not preferable for the town.