York moving town offices into temporary spot as historic Town Hall gets makeover

YORK, Maine — Town officials will be moving everything they need for the next year-and-a-half out of York’s municipal offices this weekend, as staff clears the way for the upcoming expansion to the historic Town Hall.

The town offices will be moving to a temporary location at 4 Market Place behind Walgreens. Town Hall will be closed Friday, Feb. 10 and will reopen on Tuesday, Feb. 14 at the new location.

“Please be prepared,” Interim Town Manager Kathryn Lagasse warned residents during a recent report to the Selectboard on the move. “It will probably be a little bumpy, but we are going to do our best to make it as smooth as possible.”

The town will be using three units at the Market Place address. Code enforcement and planning will be located in unit 1, finance and IT in unit 2 and the town clerk, assessing, town manager and assistant town manager in unit 4.The mailing address will be the same for town business, 186 York Street, while the construction is going on. Construction at the Town Hall is set to begin in March.

Nicole Pestana, the town’s emergency management director and local health officer, was the only town staffer who was a member of the Town Hall Building Committee. She said her goal as a member was to make sure that both the temporary location and the new Town Hall will meet the needs of staff, not just the public.

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Pestana said it was the committee that chose the temporary location, which was previously the home of Keller Williams before they moved to their new space near Lobster in the Rough. The temporary location was the only option in town to keep everyone under a single roof so people could come to one location, according to Pestana.

“It’s just the start of the whole process of really improving our space,” Pestana said of the move. “It’s just going to improve our working conditions greatly.”

Town Hall renovation/addition project years in the making

Voters approved the $7.298 million renovation and expansion of the Town Hall in the May 2022 election after nearly a century of discussion on how to address the building.

York’s town government has been located at the center of the town since the 1600s.

The existing structure was built around 1810 and became the most recent Town Hall in 1830.

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Today, officials say the town’s operations have outgrown the space.

“York’s governmental needs far exceed the limitations of the historic structure,” stated a Jan. 19 letter from contract planner Lee Jay Feldman to the Planning Board. Town staff and elected officials describe the building as pre-modern and too small for a staff of almost 30 people working together.

“People are kind of sitting on top of each other,” Selectboard Chair Todd Frederick said. “You can have a conversation in one office, and you could be sitting outside and hear the conversation as if you were in it.”

The buildings are also not fully handicapped accessible. Frederick said people that have that challenge cannot get to the second floor, and the first floor already has limited space.

“Now’s the time to move on to a more modern facility,” Frederick said.

The town has looked to replace or relocate the Town Hall since as early as the 1920s, former town manager Steve Burns said last year ahead of the May referendum. That has included at least four attempts to accomplish the update, he said.

Frederick said the most recent effort started about three years ago and has involved numerous steps. Getting the town to support the project was important, he said, but so was establishing whether the land belonged to the town or the First Parish Church.

“Way back in history, the parish was the government, so it was questionable what land did the church own and what land did the town own,” Frederick said.

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The land was at one point believed to be owned by the church, but that was ultimately disputed by historic records. The town and church entered a settlement in 2020 that deeded the land to the town.

“That was a lot of work, and that was many, many meetings, public hearings, a couple of town votes,” Frederick said.

The new project will renovate both floors while adding an 8,100-square-foot expansion on both floors to the rear of the building and include basement space as well.

Temporary offices in place for at least a year and a half

The temporary offices will be in use until July 2024, when the addition to the Town Hall is expected to be completed. The project is in its final stages of Planning Board approval which Town Hall Building Committee Chair Wayne Martin hopes will be done in February.

Martin, a retired engineer, has chaired two other major town building committees – the York High School’s music space that predates its recent auditorium and the recently built police station near Hannaford Supermarket. He said even though he’s a “newcomer” to York at 30 years in town, he is passionate about its heritage and glad the Town Hall can retain its historic location.

“Working on this project helps, one, keep the Town Hall in the center of town, and it helps celebrate the incredible history that York has,” Martin said. “It’s pretty special.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York Town Hall to be expanded, town to be offices moved temporarily