Canton boards see proposed plan for new municipal building

Mar. 26—CANTON — Members of the village and town boards got a look at a proposal to replace the Canton Municipal Building.

Ariel L. Snyder and Bryan T. Cowell, architects from BCA Architects and Engineers of Watertown, presented a $25 million plan at a joint meeting of the board Thursday night.

Canton Town Supervisor Mary Ann Ashley admitted the price tag was huge.

"I think the people that work in the building are worth more than that," she said.

"We need to think about that cost and how we are going to get there."

The boards have been working to replace the building since at least 2018, Mayor Michael E. Dalton said.

"This is a sick building," Mayor Dalton said. "It is not accessible. There is water running across the floor. We looked at remodeling this building and the expense was very high."

The municipalities are close to completing a deal to buy the adjacent McDonald's property, Mayor Dalton said.

The proposed building would be constructed on the McDonald's property.

The site of the current building would become a green space with a parking lot along Miner Street.

The current building is about 13,000 square feet, Mr. Cowell said.

More space is needed for both the police department and the court, he said, driving the square footage of the new building to 35,000 square feet.

The Main Street entrance will have a large lobby with village and town offices on either side. A staircase off the lobby will lead to second-floor offices.

The court will be situated in the middle of the building with secure and public corridors allowing the ability to separate defendants from the public. The courtroom will have a seating area large enough for 160 chairs.

The courtroom will be built to standards required by the state, Mr. Cowell said.

The police department will be in the back of the building with offices for detectives, male and female locker rooms, a sally port and secured corridors.

The second floor will have offices for the historian, assessors and code enforcement.

The building will be primarily brick and contain architectural elements to blend in with existing downtown buildings, Mr. Cowell said.

Mayor Dalton reminded board members and the public that while discussions and research began in 2018, there was still a lot of work to be done before any decisions are made.

He said complete architectural plans and bid documents could take a year to complete if and when a decision to move forward is made.

The original Town Hall and Opera Theatre was built between 1878 and 1879. It housed a bell tower, a second-floor opera house and performance venue, government offices, a newsstand and community spaces.

The Opera Theatre hosted traveling and local troupes, and the original wooden seating chart is in the historian's new office at 7 Main St.

The civic hub was destroyed by fire in February 1962, and the current municipal building was completed in 1964.

A post on the Canton Town and Village Historian Facebook page calls the original building "a showplace and architectural masterpiece ... Canton High School and St. Lawrence University would hold their graduations in the early days. The Town Hall was richer in memories than any other building in Canton."

A story in the Feb. 28, 1964, edition of the Watertown Daily Times reported that the total cost of the current building was $305,379.

According to the Consumer Price Index, $300,000 in 1964 would be worth almost $3 million in 2023.