BELLOWS FALLS — In spite of recent news reports, the Liberty Mill Justice Center (LMJC) proposed location in the former Chemco building, “is not off the table,” Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark confirmed with The Commons.
Speaking from Montpelier on Feb. 12, Clark said he is continuing to “do due diligence.”
He said that he is investigating alternative locations in Westminster and Rockingham, but he said that disclosing them would “hurt [his] ability to negotiate” and “keep costs down.”
At the heart of the issue is a $250,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Community Development Initiative loan with matching grant.
The Bellows Falls Area Development Corp. (BDAFC) holds the option to buy the Chemco property, at 203 Paper Mill Rd., for one year until with $5,000 provided by the Windham County Sheriff's Department. The option expires Sept. 30.
Clark said that “we asked, but we have not heard yet,” if the grant can be amended to apply to the project, not the building, should he decide that the Chemco building will not work for any of a variety of reasons tied to costs.
“I don't know if that loan application could be amended,” once approved, to follow the proposed project, rather than be tied to a specific building or site, he said.
The BFADC applied for the package in November on behalf of the LMJC project.
Building assessment: bracing likely necessary
According to the executive summary of a building assessment done by Brattleboro engineering firm Stevens and Associates that was released on Feb. 3, external lateral bracing will likely be needed to bring the building to current code standards.
Clark told The Commons that he does not have the funding “at the moment” to hire an architectural firm to study the building and do another assessment, then come up with a plan that would include the costs of such bracing. Nor does he know if it would be more cost effective to “tear the building down.”
Clark said his options for siting of the Justice Center are limited to towns with infrastructure that can provide 2,100 gallons a day for water and wastewater disposal for a “huge” septic system. He added that drilling a well to provide that much water is not an option.
The Chemco building was constructed in the 1920s, so “it is approaching 100 years old,” said Clark, who learned that fact from the building assessment.
Clark said additional investigation on the building is needed, but would be dependent on the cost of and funding for the project.
Funding to do additional studies would come from the pending USDA loan application. He noted that these loans have “not been awarded anywhere in the country,” as the USDA is still in the evaluation and review phase.
All that being said, Clark was optimistic that should the Chemco building prove unsuitable for any number of reasons, mostly financial, “some other location will come along.”
Building the least-complicated aspect, sheriff says
Locating a site for the Justice Center, he said, is actually the least complicated aspect of getting the project off the ground. Getting the programming set up, with multiple agencies and programs is taking up most of his time, he told The Commons.
Refusing to identify specific alternative locations he is considering, having done so already with the Chemco building, Clark said making that information public could significantly “hurt [his] ability to negotiate and keep the cost factors down.”
He confirmed prospective locations in Westminster and Rockingham, but he noted that no matter where the Justice Center ends up, it will “have to have the infrastructure to support it.”
Clark did not consider waiting out the USDA loan application process to be “a bind,” necessarily - merely a part of the process to get his Justice Center project off the ground.
“Due diligence,” he explained, “is the reason we asked for an engineering assessment - to find out what the building actually needed. It looks old, sure. But what is it actually like?”
As it turns out, it is not in bad shape, he said. With the lateral sway addressed to bring it up to current building standards, he is also looking at usable footage and cost factors.
The USDA funding could likely go toward getting an architectural firm in there to get the nuts-and-bolts of costs for moving forward with that building.