WOOLWICH

Designer Mike Ware held one end of a tape measure and Selectboard Chairman David King held the other.

Ware, King and Selectman Jason Shaw were taking measurements Monday night at the Town Office, trying to determine how an addition to the municipal building might best be designed.

A few feet here. A few feet there.

The Selectboard made no determination on how the Town Office should look if residents adopt their “Plan B” for an addition to the building, but they did sign the warrant for the May 8 annual Town Meeting.

That’s when voters will consider whether to go with the Building Committee’s suggestion for a $1.3 million renovation and enlargement of the municipal building, or with the Selectboard’s “Plan B,” which would cost upwards of $300,000.

Ware, of Wooolwich, has been working with Selectboard in recent weeks. He showed up at Monday night’s meeting with a scheme for the board’s alternate plan, a 20- foot-by-24-foot addition that would include an elevator and handicapped acessible bathrooms he said would bring the building up to code.

The addition, which would include a full basement, could include a ground-level or basement meeting space.

“That would give us a meeting room upstairs and a meeting room downstairs,” King said. “We’d have access to both of them with the elevator.”

During a tour of the current meeting space on the building’s second floor, King said the elevator could access that space from the front of the building.

King also disclosed some good news for residents:

Several years ago, when the economy was in a better state, he said the board put $250,000 away in a rainy day fund.

That fund has accrued interest and now totals nearly $319,000.

“It’s not earning much interest,” he said. “It might make more sense to use some rather than borrow at a rate of 3 to 4 percent.”

King added that he is “personally not convinced that the $300,000 is a do-able number.”

The Building Committee proposal calls for a larger meeting space that would accommodate functions, add a bay to the fire station part of the building and include all the code upgrades.

The annual Town Meeting May 8 at Woolwich Central School begins at 6 p.m.