Plans for renovation work move forward

A firm has been hired to handle preliminaries for the repair work

KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The city has hired an Albany firm to perform the preliminary design and engineering for repair work to be completed on the former Wiltwyck Fire Station on Fair Street, home to the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall and Museum of Kingston.

Summer Smith, the city’s director of communications and community engagement, said the city has contracted with the firm Lacey Thaler Reilly Wilson Architecture and Preservation to do the preliminary design and engineering on the repair project. She said the firm would be paid $38,590 for the work.

In March, the Common Council adopted a resolution authorizing the city to borrow $560,000 to make repairs to the former fire station. The funding will allow Kingston to make the most critical repairs to the city-owned building. Those repairs include replacing the Uptown building’s roof and repairing the rafters in the attic that support the structure. The money would also pay for necessary masonry work.

The repairs are expected to begin in 2020, if not sooner, Smith has previously said.

Mayor Steve Noble has said the museum building also needs approximately $500,000 worth of other repairs and updates, including improvements to the windows, interior repairs, and work on the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Funding for that work has not been proposed, but the city would seek grants to pay for it, he said.

The Volunteer Firemen’s Hall and Museum has operated in the building at 265 Fair St. since April 1982.