Improvements Planned

For Town Hall South

By Andrew Gorosko

Workers have removed the broad, elevated concrete slab from the southern end of Town Hall South, which had formerly served as a parking deck for the municipal building at 3 Main Street.

The concrete slab, which stood about 15 feet above the grade of the lower entrance to the two-story public building, had been used as a parking deck in the past. It was not used for that purpose during the past several years due to concerns about the structure’s physical integrity.

Excavation Technology, Inc, of Cheshire removed the concrete slab for the town.

Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley said this week that a structural engineer would be inspecting the remaining steel framework to learn whether that steel would be reusable for a planned reconstruction project at the site. The project’s budget is about $175,000, Mr Hurley said.

Before the town bought the building at 3 Main Street about 25 years ago, it had been used by an agricultural equipment dealership. Since the late 1990s, the town has been making a range of improvements to the building, which houses the police station and the town’s emergency 911 center on the upper level. The building’s lower level houses the town social services agency, the parks and recreation offices, and borough government offices.

Mr Hurley said the town is interested in using the existing steel framework, which formerly held the concrete parking deck, as the framework for a new concrete slab, which would serve as the roof for shed space below it, and also serve as the floor for a potential future expansion of the upper level of Town Hall South above it.

The new concrete surface would not be used as a parking deck, Mr Hurley stressed.

Until a new concrete slab is installed, possibly by this fall, the town will have in place a catwalk to link a doorway on the southern side of the police station to the station’s parking lot, Mr. Hurley said. That catwalk will allow that doorway to be used. Otherwise, the doorway would open out onto an about 15-foot drop.

The space below the new concrete slab is planned to serve as an outdoor evidence impoundment for police, where they will be able to store large objects, such a motor vehicles. That area may be partially enclosed and partially open to the elements, Mr Hurley said.

At some point in the future, the town may opt to expand the upper level of Town Hall South, which houses the police station, Mr Hurley said. Such an expansion would occur above the new concrete slab.