Tisbury’s new town hall will likely be located in a familiar location. The Tisbury Select Board voted 2–0 on Tuesday to pursue a feasibility study to build a new town hall on 66 High Point Lane, where several departments are already located. Board member Christina Colarusso was absent.
ICON Architecture, the Boston-based firm tapped to find an appropriate site, will be conducting the study.
The project would consolidate town departments into a single, 15,100-square-foot, two-story facility, and include a new 8,900-square-foot, one-story police station. Tisbury Town Administrator Joseph LaCivita said the next steps would be conducting the $69,450 feasibility study and bringing estimated costs to voters during the annual town meeting in April.
The town had been gathering public feedback before the meeting as it considered two final locations, 66 High Point Lane and 55 West William St. Rick Homans, who chaired the town hall selection task force, said the High Point Lane location received support.
Planners have noted that the High Point Lane property, a little more than three acres, has more room for future expansion, and would be better for multiple functions. But the site is on a slope, and is farther away from downtown Tisbury. Additionally, staff will need to be relocated during construction.
Currently, the bulk of town departments are split between facilities on High Point Lane and 51 Spring St. But there have been complaints that having multiple locations can make business difficult for town employees, and there have been concerns in the past about conditions at the current facilities, including mold. Tisbury also wants to build a more accessible and code-compliant facility.
Mark McKevitz from ICON Architecture showed two potential iterations of the High Point location. One would have the police station and town hall connected to each other, while another would have two buildings at the site, while avoiding a sloped area with trees.
While the board wanted to explore whether there could be ways to save money, such as doing the police station in a separate phase, McKevitz said this would become clearer through the feasibility study.
The board also approved changing the task force into a building committee.