The Windham Town Council may schedule a November referendum seeking funds for the construction of a $7.62 million, 29,000-square-foot public works and maintenance building on Windham Center Road.

If taken to vote and approved, the new facility would replace the 8,783-square-foot existing structure, which was constructed in 1979 on a 29.5-acre site on the southerly side of Windham Center Road. The facility, which services both municipal and Regional School Unit 14 transportation and maintenance activities, has been periodically renovated through the years, with a 14,000-square-foot sand and salt shed built on site in 2000.

Town officials say the facility is generally too small and is poorly designed, leading to frequent complications as public works and bus drivers cross paths with each other and drive over ill-defined areas of stockpiled materials such as road gravel. Due to a scarcity of truck bays, public works trucks are left outside during the winter, leading to service delays and the need for premature equipment replacement and repairs.

According to Town Manager Tony Plante, the original facility was built with current needs – not those of the future – in mind.

“The building was really probably too small the minute we moved in,” Plante said. “It really provided no opportunity for growth.”

In 1999, voters rejected a $3.9 million bond to construct a new public works and maintenance facility at the Windham Center Road site. In April of this year, the Town Council signed a $59,500 contract with the Portland-based Allied Engineering design firm to produce a schematic design narrative that updates a 1999 feasibility study associated with the construction bond floated that year for the proposed facility.

The updated schematic design proposes a two-story, 120-foot by 195-foot building, featuring 12 garage bays, a variety of administrative offices, locker rooms, conference rooms, kitchenettes, storage rooms, a carpentry shop, and a meeting room for 30-50 people, among other features. The facility would be built where the existing leaf and brush area is located, in the southwest portion of the lot.

The proposed building would feature a red-iron steel frame superstructure. The 5,400-square-foot administrative section of the building, which would be the section visible from Windham Center Road, would be designed to emulate a “rural neighborhood appearance,” with a roof featuring pitched gable trusses and roof shingles with standing seam metal roofing at entrance canopies. The exterior of the administrative section would feature a brick veneer wainscot, cement-composite clapboard and shingle siding.

The facility design is geared toward servicing 35 school district employees and 20 public works employees. According to Plante, if approved by voters, the town’s Buildings and Grounds administrative team will move from offices next to the town gym and into the new facility.

“Buildings and grounds will all move down to the public works facility so the whole public works department will be in one place,” Plante said. “You’ll have the director and the division supervisors, so they can communicate more effectively.”

The design is intended to foster a spirit of collaboration, with a variety of common administrative and workshop areas for the school district and public works departments. At a special Town Council meeting held Tuesday, town officials applauded the schematics.

Public Works Director Doug Fortier said Allied Engineering had done a “good job,” while Highway Maintenance Supervisor Mike Constantine said the design would facilitate cooperation and quality work for the long term.

“I think the biggest thing was we wanted to put something together that was going to function now and for the foreseeable future and that we could all work cohesively together, whether it was on the road maintenance side or the repair side or just the drivers,” he said.

Similarly, Regional School Unit 14 Facilities Director Bill Hansen said that the design would “meet our needs very well.”

Whereas the existing facility forces the public works department to leave its 15 trucks outdoors all winter, that would not be the case in the proposed facility, Fortier said.

“I am going to say that all of them could fit inside,” he said. “I don’t see why they can’t. It would be a much larger garage to give you more room.”

Town Council Chairman David Nadeau gave the design good reviews for its parking and access road setup.

“The old site right now really has a problem with public works trying to get out and buses trying to get out,” Nadeau said. “This design really separates it out, and it takes away the issue that the bus drivers have always had with walking across the parking lot to get to their bus and falling issues and whatever. This does a real good job of separating that.”

Asked to explain the discrepancy in cost between the 1999 and the 2015 designs, Plante cited changing department needs, regulations and technology.

“Building technology has changed, codes have changed, some operational things have changed for public works and the school district,” Plante said. “So we needed to go through that process to understand what those needs were and make sure that the schematic design adequately reflected those needs.”

Discussions regarding whether to improve the public works facility have been ongoing for years. Officials have mainly argued whether the costs outweigh the benefits.

“I think there’s recognition on the part of most, if not all, members of the council that the town has overlooked or deferred its facilities needs for too long and wants to work on meeting those needs in some kind of systematic way,” Plante said.

In 1999, a school bond and the bond for the proposed public works facility were on the ballot. Councilor Donna Chapman suggested that town and school district officials attempt to avoid that scenario this November.

“I know the RSU wants this as much as we do, so maybe when we go to put it out to the voters we don’t see any school bonds that year – hint, hint,” she said.

“The need is really here,” Chapman added. “We can’t keep putting this off on this facility.”

Windham town officials say the 8,783-square-foot public works and maintenance facility on Windham Center Road, which was constructed in 1979, is too small and poorly designed.   Staff photo by Ezra SilkThe Town Council is considering holding a November referendum to construct a new public works garage. If approved, the facility would be built where the existing leaf and brush area is located, in the southwest portion of the lot.Image courtesy of Allied Engineering