New Town Hall Cleared For Bids

By Kendra Bobowick

The bidding process for renovation work at Bridgeport Hall to accommodate municipal and education department offices received a green light late Wednesday, making it the second of two significant projects that will reshape Newtown’s future.

Just a day and a half after a bidding period closed for an estimated $38 million for high school expansion, critical paperwork regarding Bridgeport Hall that was “stuck in the mill” on the state level at last got the go-ahead, said First Selectman Joe Borst, allowing town officials to initiate a bidding process for the estimated $10.5 million package to adapt the former state hospital building for public use.

Happy to have the letter from the state’s Department of Education in his hands by midweek, Mr Borst said, “We finally got the OK. It had been holding up the bidding…” Noting that project coordinators and town officials had sent applications to the state weeks ago, Mr Borst, frustrated with delays, noted, “We don’t know what happened.”

Although the Bridgeport Hall renovations are not necessarily a school project, the state education board needed to review plans because Newtown’s Board of Education administrative offices will take up half the renovated space in the building centered on the Fairfield Hills campus.

The renovations that will at last welcome municipal offices relocated from the Edmond Town Hall had encountered a handful of snags encumbering the opening date for bids, according to the first selectman. The state wanted to see updated traffic studies, which town crews and project managers scrambled to complete in past months. Pointing to another “hold up,” Mr Borst explained that state officials “indicated we needed a radon system.” A radon detection system needed to be incorporated into the revamped brick building.

With the nod to open bids, Fairfield Hills Authority members and Mr Borst are hopeful that packages will come back under the estimated costs for work. If not, the authority and project managers have discussed “value engineering” to whittle down the overall costs. The bidding process will be open for at least 20 days from the time the solicitation is publicized.