New Municipal Center Nears Completion

By Kendra Bobowick

Sidewalks are swept and new grass has poked through the soil. Light posts lay beside in-ground wiring, ready to stand up and illuminate steps leading toward Newtown Municipal Center’s back entrance.

“By the end of the month this will be substantially complete,” said Clerk of the Works Bill Knight Tuesday morning. Reaching for the doorframe, he pulled himself inside what was once Bridgeport Hall and part of the Fairfield Hills State Hospital, now reconfigured to house the town and Board of Education offices. His footprints smudged drywall dust coating the unfinished concrete floors not yet covered with new carpeting. Fresh paint fumes soaked into his hair. One arm outstretched, Mr Knight pointed down the hallway lined with floor-to-ceiling windows beside empty doorways, “This is the town wing,” he said. Land use, zoning, and other offices will settle into that space by November.

Stepping past an employee break room, restrooms, and along a main hall, Mr Knight moved beneath both dropped and vaulted ceilings and pointed to what is shaping into the registrar’s new office. Entering another suite, lights automatically turned on overhead. The motion detection system is an energy-saving feature. Across the hall is the town clerk’s space, filled Tuesday with rolled carpet, boxes, blueprints, and the clutter of work-in-progress.

“It’s really a staging area right now,” Mr Knight explained, squeezing through the space. A skill saw’s whine cut through contractors’ nearby voices. Walking outside, Mr Knight indicated the roadway, graded and ready to pave, a back loading area, and an expanse between the Newtown Municipal Center and the Newtown Youth Academy where Greenwich House once stood. With that building razed, a central parking area and greenway beckons visitors. Nearby are Litchfield Hall and Yale House, two buildings that will also be demolished once bids for the work are in. Bids open later this month, and already contractors have expressed interest in the job, Mr Knight added. Back inside he walked through the education wing, pointing: the superintendent’s office, the assistant superintendent, a secretary’s office, he said.

Turning the corner he noted a shared meeting room, the first selectman’s office, human resources, finance…

“We’re on schedule,” he said. Town and education offices will move incrementally throughout coming weeks. Walking down some stairs, Mr Knight arrived in the basement, now partitioned into storage space. Fresh concrete sections in the foundation fill in former access points to tunnels that had once connected the buildings. Over the sealed entrances were words, “laundry” or “Cochran House,” indicating destinations. The municipal building is not interconnected any more, Mr Knight said.

Back outside, contractors’ vans lined the curb. Plumbing, heating, engineering, electric … all at work this week and bringing the $10-plus million project closer to completion.

The new town office space also uses the last of an initial $21 million bond approved by voters in 2001 to begin work on the 180 acres of Fairfield Hills property purchased from the state. Funding requests for future work on the campus, including infrastructure and demolition, are included in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan now before town officials.

(An online video tour of the building is available at NewtownBee.com.)