Design for the pending Boston Road Fire Station is 30 percent completed, and its cost is now $4 million above what was expected when presented to voters at Town Meeting.
That cost was presented to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday and it appears that cost will have to change in the near future.
Permanent Town Building Committee Member Tom Mahanna came before the board along with representatives of the architectural firm Dore and Whittier to present a modified floor plan that addresses the $16.7 million cost estimate while also providing three columns for potential cuts identified as “Accept”, “Consider” and “Decline.”
Reducing all the items in the “Accept” column would bring the project’s cost down to approximately $15.4 million, adding the items in the “Consider” column would bring the project down to approximately $14 million and adding the “Decline” items would bring the project to approximately $12.5 million.
However, items in the “Decline” column, such as reducing equipment bays, were generally unpalatable to the Permanent Town Building Committee.
“It seems like you’ve accepted the ‘accept’ column, considered the ‘consider’ column and declined the ‘decline’ column,” said Selectman Kelly Ross.
Ross and fellow Selectman Mark Kost felt that anything more than the original $12.7 million appropriation, with perhaps slightly more funding for remediation efforts toward excessive lead and arsenic levels found in soil on the site of the station.
The word in particular they used was “credibility,” noting that voters would not accept Proposition 2 ½ debt exclusions for five upcoming projects if town government came back for additional money on top of initial appropriations.
Selectman Don Siriani also agreed that Town Meeting’s figure should be followed, but he also agreed with Selectmen Andrea Peraner-Sweet and Scott Hazelton that a meeting room promised to both the Fire Department and Police Department should not be removed from the project, as the Police Department’s meeting room was sacrificed for a pending joint dispatch center.
The new plan brought the meeting room from the back of the building to the front in order to potentially provide the option of bidding it separately or adding it to the building at a later date.
Kost asked if the basement in the Rogers Fire Station that currently serves as a training room could serve the purpose of the proposed training room on Boston Road.
Westford Fire Department Chief Joe Targ indicated that there are 50 parking spaces at the Rogers Fire Station and frequently the parking lot overflows into the Town Farm Building during large events.
Town Manager Jodi Ross indicated that some money could potentially be used within the town’s current budget, although that avenue still required additional research. Additionally, several people noted that it would be difficult to use that route when recently the Finance Committee asked the School Committee to cut $153,000 from its proposed budget.
Peraner-Sweet indicated that the final number may be slightly more than the approximately $13 million supported by Kost and Kelly Ross, and also noted concerns about eliminating sloped roofs from the building.
Dore and Whittier representatives indicated that they had planned flat roofs of comparable size in the past that utilized redundant drainage systems, although some roofs shoveling would be needed if the town saw snowfall comparable to last winter significant amount.
If additional money is sought from the voters, the matter would be brought to Fall Special Town Meeting in October, with an additional vote piggybacked on the State and Federal election in November.
In the meantime, it appears that there is a consensus that this matter will be a matter of discussion for the foreseeable future.
“I don’t think there are two camps,” said Siriani. “I think what (all of the) Selectmen said is to go back to the drawing board with sharper pencils.”
