Millville to welcome visitors at new town hall headquarters
MILLVILLE – A longawaited grand opening ceremony and open house for the public to tour the newly-refurbished American Legion Hall on Main Street – the town’s new temporary town hall – will be held Wednesday, Aug. 16 from 4 to 8 p.m.
The open house was supposed to be held this past Wednesday, but town officials said the transition of moving municipal operations out of the police station into the new location – which has essen- tially been completed – was a herculean task that required last minute adjustments.
Town Administrator Jennifer Callahan says the community will be impressed by what they see on Aug. 16.
“We think once people see the transformation they are going to be thrilled,” she said. “It’s going to be a great building to work in.”
Callahan said a separate event will be held in the fall to publicly acknowledge the many donors and volunteers, including students from the
Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School, who took part in the refurbishing project.
With the help of Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School students and other volunteers, the town has spent the better part of six months retrofitting the American Legion Hall at 290 Main St. as a temporary town hall for the next three years. The existing Longfellow Municipal Center on Central Street was shuttered in the summer of 2016 because of serious structural issues.
More than 70 students Blackstone Valley Tech helped with the project by offering their drafting, plumbing, electrical and HVAC skills for free.
The town has entered into a formal agreement with Millville-Memorial American Legion Post 411 to lease the Legion Hall, which will house municipal offices and town operations for the next 36 months while town officials and develop a plan to eventually build a new town hall. During that time, the town will use the senior center, library, police station and Chestnut Hill Community Center for public meetings and gatherings.
Last October, an engineering firm hired by the town to conduct a structural analysis of the ailing Longfellow Municipal Center confirmed what town officials have known for months – the 100year-old building closed since July of 2016 is severely damaged and structurally unsafe.
The current Millville Town Hall was built in 1850 as the original Longfellow School and is just under 10,000 square feet. It was later repurposed to serve as the Town Hall.
The building is three stories tall and includes a partially occupied basement, first floor, second floor, and unoccupied attic. A new elevator tower was added to the building in the early 2000s.
The building, however, is in decline and continues to suffer from heating problems, electrical issues and serious moisture concerns, in addition the structural problems.
The deterioration has become so bad in recent years that the town hired a engineering firm two years ago to assess the building. A structural engineer did a walkthrough and came up with a laundry list of problems, a majority of them structural in nature.
In July of 2016, Callahan received a letter from town Building Commissioner Larry Lench deeming the Longfellow Municipal Center “unsafe for occupancy.” A decision was then made to close the building.
Up until two weeks ago, all town hall operations have been operating at the police station.