New Town Hall Moves Toward A September Opening

By Kendra Bobowick

“I don’t see a problem with a September opening,” said Clerk of the Works Bill Knight. From his spot on the street outside Bridgeport Hall Wednesday, he looked months ahead, seeing past the mounds of soil, deep tire tracks from heavy machinery, loose concrete piled near the foundation, and random plastic trash bags and tarps scattered on the ground.

He anticipates a late September date that will bring Board of Education and municipal personnel to their new offices in Fairfield Hills. Keycards in hand, they will step across new walkways, ascend fresh-laid brick steps, and pull the handle on the former state hospital building to enter a reconstructed set of business suites.

Wednesday’s tour, however, revealed a partially dismantled, and in places reassembled, work in progress. Public Works Director Fred Hurley said, “It’s surprising how far we’ve gotten, but deceptive.” Partially framed offices and conference rooms, thick vault doors that will guard papers in the town clerk’s office, and the cylinders and elbows of ductwork catching the sunlight share space with piled sheet rock, wheelbarrows of debris, bags of construction material, ladders that block doorways leading to incomplete meeting spaces, and plumbing stabbing into the space where a restroom should be.

“There is a lot of progress,” Mr Hurley said, “but there is a lot to do.” Finish work especially “takes forever,” he said.

Approaching Bridgeport Hall, which will inherit a weathervane from facing Shelton House, Mr Knight pointed to fresh brickwork, almost camouflaged against the backdrop of brick construction creating the nearly 80-year-old building’s façade.

“It’s a good match, don’t you think?” he asked. Stepping around uneven ground, he moved toward a sidewalk leading to the entrance doors. “That was poured yesterday,” he said. Underfoot was fresh concrete that had set overnight. Up the stairs and through the open doorway, Mr Knight led a trail of footprints — through the sheetrock dust and across a polished concrete floor — his boot treads wound through the sheetrock dust settled in the building’s wings. Pointing as he went, Mr Knight marked a path through the education wing and past doorways leading to what will be offices along the perimeter of otherwise open rooms. The superintendent, the secretary, the assistant superintendent; their offices are all walled off, he said. Conference rooms sat midcorridor.

Entering a central hallway and into another room with walls reaching all the way to the cathedral ceiling, unlike sections of the building with either drop ceilings or the original height, he indicated one large area defined by the metal framework. “That’s the new meeting room,” he said. Future town meetings could take place there, with updated video and audio technology. Around another corner he noted: “This corner here is the town clerk’s; that’s where the new vault is going to go.” A few more steps past more framed-out offices noted room for the first selectmen, secretaries …

In another space he pointed: the building officials, fire marshal, tax assessor … Locating blue-prints he ran his finger along the names sketched on the page. Health director, land use, zoning, conservation — all of which are now housed at Peck’s Lane.

Equipped with new plumbing, electricity, ducts, and “everything, all new,” various stages of rough inspections will begin before sheetrock installation in remaining places. “It’s already done in the other wing,” he said. “We’re making good progress.”

Ending the tour, he stopped for a glance at the high ceilings, arched doorways, and floor-to-ceiling windows that are either refinished or new. “I don’t know if you were in here before, but it’s quite different,” Mr Knight said.

At work are roughly 45 different men and women from A&A Drywall, Eastern Energy, C&H Electric, Epifano Builders, Acranom Masons, and Nagy Brothers site construction crews.