Big Plans for Town Hall Complex

A team that has been looking at how East Hampton Town might centralize its offices has recommended tearing down the old town hall building, which is largely empty, and building a state-of-the art, 14,000-square-foot annex, using green construction and technology.

Town offices are now scattered throughout the town. Bringing them together, it is said, would not only save money but improve work efficiency and service to residents.

The project could cost $5.5 million, but with an expected sale of town property and a state grant, the estimated cost to taxpayers would be about $600,000.

Another option, according to the team’s report, is to refurbish the old town hall building and add a 4,000-square-foot annex. The old building was vacated several years ago and left to molder after a new complex was created from donated historic buildings.

The current Town Hall would remain in use. Several small outbuildings now vacant would be renovated, and employees now working in town-owned offices at Pantigo Place, at the Lamb building on Bluff Road in Amagansett, and in other outbuildings on the central campus would move into the main buildings.

Reuse of the old town hall would cost an estimated $2.9 million overall, but the sale of the Pantigo Place condominium offices, appraised in 2011 at $3.7 to $4.4 million, and “a proposed sale of other assets” for about $500,000, could still allow the town to net about $1.9 million. The town was awarded a $550,000 state government efficiency grant in 2013, which has been earmarked for the project, and more grants, such as those offered for energy conservation efforts, may be obtained as well.

Drew Bennett, an engineer, worked with Alex Walter, Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s executive assistant; Kim Shaw, the natural resources director; Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director; and Ron Pirrelli of the Planning Department to evaluate the options, which he presented to the town board at a meeting on Tuesday. The group concluded that 16,000 square feet of office space and 6,500 square feet of storage area would be needed to accommodate the outlying offices at the town hall campus. In addition to the old town hall, three unused historic buildings located on the campus and an adjacent lot — the Peach House, the Baker House, and the Baker Barn — could provide space.

Neither the old town hall nor the Baker Barn is habitable, but the barn, according to the report, might serve as a meeting room after renovations.

Among the factors to be considered, the team said, is the cost of the “significant work” that would be needed to repurpose the barn, the lack of public meeting space at the trustees’ current office, and the fact that the old town hall building still contains “critical communications and information technology infrastructure.”

The location and size of the town clerk’s office is an issue, Mr. Bennett told the board. More storage space for town records is needed, and the clerk’s office, often the first port of call for residents seeking recycling or beach stickers or other town services, should perhaps be more immediately accessible.

Parking is less of a concern. According to Mr. Bennett, the campus has sufficient space to create parking for employees and visitors to all the offices, should they be consolidated there.

Restoring the old town hall and constructing an addition would be less expensive than razing it and building a new annex, but “does not improve the quality and function of the space,” said the report. Mr. Bennett said that using green building techniques would add $800,000 to $900,000 to the cost of a new building, but that the investment would pay for itself within 10 years in energy savings.

It would also “reduce the town’s carbon footprint, reduce operating and maintenance costs through energy efficiency, and make the project more eligible for grant funding,” he said in the report.

“We have a very inefficient campus now, with the offices scattered all over,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We often find visitors going here and there trying to find the right office.”

Should the town board choose to act on his group’s recommendation, Mr. Bennett said, the next step would be to issue a request for proposals from design professionals to draft construction plans.