‘What the town needs’: North Hampton seeks $9.9M for new public safety complex

NORTH HAMPTON — Town officials are pitching a $9.9 million “municipal complex” that would eliminate the current cramped spaces at the police station and town offices, and a decaying fire station.

Few deny the town needs a new fire station or more space for police and town officials. Like most municipal projects of this nature, however, North Hampton must float a bond to fund construction, requiring at least a 60 percent voter approval at the March election.

The 800-pound gorilla in the room at the Nov. 18 Select Board’s hearing on the complex’s cost was the unspoken knowledge that a nearly $10 million warrant question is a hard nut to crack at the polls.

North Hampton resident Alex Reno expressed what many at the presentation were thinking.

“I really don’t like it when property taxes go up,” said Reno, who is Hampton’s deputy police chief. “But the conditions I see at the fire station are deplorable. I think it’s going to cost us more down the road if we push this off.”

Reno added that for North Hampton to continue to ask town employees to work in depressing and unsafe working conditions can be demoralizing and not the way to keep loyal, hard-working staff.

‘Time to move forward’: North Hampton eyes new public safety complex. No word on cost yet.

According to architect John Tuttle, of T/W Designs of Strafford, and contractor John Ricci, of Portsmouth’s Ricci Construction, given the conditions of the town’s current buildings, tearing down and building new is both more cost-effective and time-efficient.

At its previous meeting, the Select Board approved the conceptual design for the municipal complex, giving Tuttle and Ricci the go-ahead to gather cost estimates.

Details on new public safety building

Proposed is a new 26,557-square-foot, two-story public safety building housing both the police and fire departments with four fire vehicle bays. It also includes the renovation of the former library with a two-story, 4,000 square-foot storage addition, providing a total of 9,500 square feet for town offices.

Ricci said, his estimates are roughly based on $310 per square foot construction costs for the public safety building and about $147 per square foot for the renovation and addition to the former library.

Select Board member James Sununu gathered figures of square footage costs for similar safety building projects in communities from North Conway to Ipswich, Massachusetts, he said. Sununu found costs ranging from more than $400 to $600-plus per square foot, leading him to believe the square footage costs Ricci quoted were reasonable.

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According to Ricci, his all-inclusive $9,937,254 estimate includes a $560,000 contingency fee, money traditionally set aside by builders in case unforeseen issues arise.

Ricci’s budget also includes $300,000 for relocation of affected personnel and services during construction, as well as money for new furniture and equipment for the departments involved.

“If we go forward,” Ricci said, “we have to include everything. The last thing you want to do is leave things out.”

He added that costs can be adjusted to a certain degree depending of the materials chosen for use in construction, such as the quality of insulation, type of sprinkler systems or masonry, as well as options like alternative energy solar panels.

Both Ricci and Tuttle said the list of necessities given to them from both Police Chief Kathryn Mone and Fire Chief Jason Lajoie were not extravagant. The lists included needs, they said, not wants.

According to Tuttle, the public safety building would be a two-story, clapboard and brick-sided, peaked-roofed structure to rise on the cleared site to house North Hampton’s fire and police stations. The design includes covered double-porticos allowing separate entrances for each agency, along with four drive-through bays for fire apparatus and two for the police sally ports.

The design adds needed spaces missing presently. Tuttle said that includes a decontamination room where firefighters can wash off after fighting fires among hazardous materials, and a separate juvenile area in the Police Department, something required by law which North Hampton doesn’t have.

Tuttle said the first floors have spaces the public is likely to access: interview rooms, lobby, chiefs' offices. The second floor has more offices, as well as a number of shared spaces, like training, lockers, evidence and meeting rooms. The building also has a 2,000-square-foot mezzanine for storage above the fourth garage bay.

Former library to be renovated for town offices

The municipal complex plans call for the renovation of the former library to house the various non-emergency departments like administration, planning, finance, building, tax collector and perhaps eventually the town clerk. The two-story, 4,000 square-foot addition to be built at its eastern end would be devoted solely for storage, including North Hampton’s archives.

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Town Administrator Mike Tully was asked to do a quick calculation on how much the tax rate could go up if the project were approved. Tully said an exact number is impossible to know presently, since it all depends on the final amount the town borrows, length of the bond – 20 or 30 years – and the interest rate the Municipal Bond Bank charges at the time the bond is floated.

However, Tully said, doing some rough calculations he thought the town’s tax rate could rise about 35 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value. With the average price of a North Hampton home at about $500,000, if Tully’s correct, it would mean an additional $175 a year to residential tax bills.

Sununu said the town will investigate any and all options for construction grants that may be available to municipalities, but cautioned that many are for low-income communities and North Hampton is unlikely to meet the criteria.

Currently, Sununu said, interest rates are historically low. He’s hoping that lasts but worries rates could rise as a way to halt inflation. Sununu also believes waiting may not only see interest rates go up, but building costs as well. The same municipal complex next year would be $10.5 million, he said, and $11 million the year after that.

“What’s being proposed is a big number, but it’s realistic, too,” Sununu said. “It’s a question of is this what the town needs, and this is what it costs.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: North Hampton NH seeks $9.9M for new public safety complex