Bradford Town Hall Restoration Committee
January 20, 2012
Committee Members
Eileen Kelly – Chair, John Greenwood – Vice Chair, Marcia Keller, Dick Keller, Michele Halsted, Beth Rodd, Audrey V. Sylvester, Caryl Walker, Phyllis Wilcox, Sandra Wright, Andrew Pinard, Marge Cilley – Secretary and George Cilley
Mission Statement
The mission of the Town Hall Restoration Committee is to restore the Town Hall to a functional building for municipal services and community use. The best investment for the town is to modernize the building to provide for the town’s present needs, as cost effectively as possible, so that it can continue to serve Bradford for many years to come, consistent with its historical character.
Brief History
Bradford’s Town Hall was built in 1797 and is Bradford’s most valuable property asset. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1863 the “meeting house” was moved from Center Bradford and reconstructed in its present location at 75 West Main Street. The citizens then, as now, valued the Town Hall and its central role as an architecturally distinctive and functional community cornerstone.
For 150 years, the Town Hall has functioned as the heart of vibrant civic, cultural, sports and educational life of Bradford, beginning in 1866 with concerts by the Bradford Cornet Band. A generation of pupils studied at the Village Grammar School on the first floor (1900-1937) and citizens relished weekly moving picture shows with live piano accompaniment (1910-1928) in the Grand Hall on the second floor. In 1915, the Grange transformed the Town Hall into the “Bradford Opera House” to stage the first of many operettas. By the early 1930s, with cages installed to protect windows, the second floor was serving as a basketball court, where the Bradford Braves competed against the Squaws as fans cheered from the stage. Countless dances, school plays, graduation ceremonies, elections, weddings, public hearings and meetings of town boards have taken place there over the years.
Status of Town Hall
The Town Hall has been evacuated because of mold issues. The Police Department was first relocated to a trailer in the parking lot and is now relocated in the space next to the post office. The other town offices have been squeezed into the bottom floor of the town’s Community Center, a tight space not large enough for town business. These are temporary measures taken until the town resolves the issues surrounding the town hall.
Committee’s Work
Town Hall Restoration Committee has been meeting on a weekly basis, and sometimes more than once a week, since last October.
The committee is looking at a long term plan – to restore the Town Hall for town use without the continual, and very expensive, piece-meal repairs, and at the same time continue to respect the historical character of the building. The goal is to return town offices to the lower floor of the building with handicap access and fire safety issues on the second floor addressed at a later time – as soon as practical.
We have reviewed the previous plans, held discussions with experts knowledgeable about the process, such as the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, and toured a recently renovated historic town hall in Walpole to gain additional ideas.
The committee has investigated Financing – we’ve met with banking officials from several area banks and discussed what options might be available to the town for financing. Ideas like Bonding/Loan/Line of credit for a phase-in plan or the entire project.
One thing in our favor is low interest rates.
One piece of information that we were discovered is that our town has grown by 50 % over last 30 years. We need to be thinking about our future.
We need to look for a long-term solution. No more patch work repairs that just push-off to another day a problem that escalates into a major issue – like what we have now. And that cost us all much more than we should be paying
Cost
We have spent over 213 thousand dollars in the past six years in band-aid repairs. We are not making real improvements to the building. This just does not make sense.
This does not include the cost of moving the town offices into the community center, or the police department and the retrofitting of those spaces.
It makes fiscal sense to undertake renovations now because interest rates are low.
If we took out a bond or a loan for the amount to renovate and spread the payments out over 15 to 20 years, we would be paying about the same amount per year as we are now – and not getting anything back on our outlay.
We can afford this project – what we cannot afford is inefficient spending that gets us nowhere.
Grants
Committee members are investigating grants, including the Preservation Services Grant Program. Several committee members have attended a grant writing workshop and will attend a NH Preservation Alliance Retreat on January 25th. The Committee will continue to investigate any grants that may be available.
Future Needs/Use of Space
Although the building was not originally built for office space, that is what the town’s current and future needs are, and with a well-designed space, the Town Hall will be a functional and economic asset once again.
The well-attended Bradford Town Forum held November 6, 2010, polled the citizens with results supporting Town Hall as a viable space for town functions.
A second town forum was held on January 14, 2012 at the Bradford Elementary School with over 100 citizens attending and facilitated by Jeff Taylor. Again, support was expressed for renovation Town Hall, but cost is a big factor for a small community such as Bradford.
Goals
To bring the Bradford Town Hall to current environmental and safety standards as cost effectively as possible;
To enhance the Bradford Town Hall’s functional capabilities and aesthetic qualities;
To restore the Bradford Town Hall to its traditional role as a prime community gathering place.
The Committee has been working hard over the last several months. We are very enthused about the support that has been shown from the community and thank everyone for their involvement.
Respectfully submitted,
Eileen Kelly, Chair