ROYALSTON — Ground was broken the past week on the $880,000 Royalston Town Hall accessibility project. The bulk of the cost is being covered by a Fiscal Year 2015 Community Development Block Grant.
The towns of Phillipston and Royalston received just over $831,000 in FY15 block grant funds to make the town halls in each community handicap accessible. The goal is to build an elevator in Royalston and a wheelchair lift in Phillipston. Kurtz, Inc. of Westfield is the contractor on both projects.
The $831,000 grant was to be used to pay for the installation of an elevator in both municipal buildings. At first, it appeared the CDBG funds, in addition to about $340,000 in other local and grant monies, would fall nearly $220,000 short of the cash needed to carry out the two-town project, but a re-working of the Phillipston project solved that problem. The shortfall occurred even though Phillipston had close to $454,000 in funds available, while Royalston had a total of more than $757,000 dedicated to the project.
However, the architect on the project, Paul Lieneck of the Ashby firm Haynes, Lieneck and Smith, explained that the cost of the Phillipston project could be scaled back considerably by installing a wheelchair lift instead of an elevator. In addition to costing less, Lieneck noted the change would decrease the amount of structural work that would be necessary at town hall.
The company installed such a lift in Athol. Lieneck said the equipment cost is $35,000 or $40,000 as compared to $127,000 for an elevator. There is no need to upgrade the electrical service because a lift runs on a standard 220v circuit. Also there is no need to build a masonry hoistway, install an elevator pit or build an elevator machine room. There is also no need to relocate the chimney.
Lieneck said the wheelchair lift falls under the Elevator Board’s (state Board of Elevator Regulations) jurisdiction.
Phillipston Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Flynn said changing from an elevator to a chair lift for Phillipston town hall would require the approval of the state Dept. of Housing and Community Development because it would constitute a change in the purpose of the block grant.