Board seeks bids for new township building
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Township commissioners have taken the next step toward building a new $8.4 million township building.
With assurances from architect Randy Galiotto from the firm of Alloy 5 in Bethlehem that all the paperwork was in order, the commissioners voted unanimously on March 1 to put the project out to bid.
According to a legal notice published Friday in The Mercury, bidders have until April 5 to submit their proposal.
A pre-bid conference will be held March 24 in the Sunnybrook ballroom, followed by a visit to the project site, according to the notice.
Although he voted for the motion, Township Commissioner Mike McGroarty, who has voted against the project in the past, saying it is too expensive, asked if this vote bound the commissioners to move forward with the project.
“You can always reject the bids,” replied township Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr.
In November, McGroarty cast the only dissenting vote when the commissioners voted to move ahead with the project.
The new building is designed to be 16,000 square feet and be built to make expansion easy. It will house the police department as well as the township’s admin
Funding for the project will come from a bond issue whose payments will be made out of a capital reserve tax implemented three years ago by the township. The 2021 budget does not call for any increase in this tax, which brings in about $300,000 a year.
istrative offices.
By comparison, the current building at the corner of Buchert Road and North Pleasantview Road is only 7,500 square feet. It was built in 1990.
Funding for the project will come from a bond issue whose payments will be made out of a capital reserve tax implemented three years ago by the township. The 2021 budget does not call for any increase in this tax, which brings in about $300,000 a year.
But taxes did go up in the 2020 budget by about 6.9 percent, primarily to boost the capital projects fund.
This issue has been brewing since 2007, when the township first wrestled with the question of the size of the current township building, considered too small as the population of the once-rural township has mushroomed.
That was the year, the township undertook a study
to determine the feasibility of expanding the existing building. But the cost and loss of parking did not offset the limited space the expansion would provide, to Commissioner Raymond Lopez,
who headed up the infrastructure committee which has spearheaded the current effort, told the commissioners in 2018.
The township looked at the same issue again in 2015
and came to the same conclusion, according to Lopez.
Township officials ultimately settled on the current site and began assembling the properties in January 2018.