ORANGE — The Selectboard voted Wednesday to sign a lease agreement for 62 Cheney St. in a move both the Selectboard chair and town administrator called a “long time coming.”
The same board voted in October 2021 to close the Orange Armory, temporarily relocate the municipal offices that were based there, and hammer out a lease to operate out of the rectory of the former Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, which a handful of years ago gave its facilities to Mission Covenant Church for social and faith-based activities. Town Administrator Gabriele Voelker said Donna MacNicol, Orange’s legal counsel, has negotiated the agreement with the Cheney Street church.
“This is the final product. It’s a standard lease,” Voelker explained at Wednesday’s meeting. “It’s a five-year lease, and the money we’ve invested in the building, we have … approximately three years’ credit on the rent.”
Voelker explained the lease is $1,200 per month, but the town will be credited $1,000 monthly for three years. She said the town will contribute $200 per month to “a stabilization-type fund” for capital.
The lease includes the facility’s kitchen and the side of the building the town has previously not used.
“Once we sign the lease, we will be able to get into the other side of the building, but there is a hitch,” Voelker explained “We can’t get in there until the fire-suppression system is complete.”
The Orange Armory at 135 East Main St. has fallen into disrepair and the Cheney Street building was selected to temporarily house town services such as the Council on Aging, Board of Health and Planning Board.
In October 2021, Voelker told the Selectboard the armory’s basement always has water in it and the floor is covered in brown mold. She mentioned the town tried unsuccessfully for years to get an engineer to design a new roof before Tighe & Bond gave an estimate of more than $50,000, which she said was far too expensive. The town eventually contracted with McKenzie Engineering Co., which designed a roof for $28,000.
But debate lingers as to a long-term solution. Selectboard member Andrew Smith said at that meeting that he is not prepared to have residents’ taxes substantially raised to repair “such a building.” He said he agrees the Orange Armory is a safety hazard, but the structure might be too far gone to repair.
On the other hand, Richard Sheridan, a Selectboard member who has been in the construction business for most of his adult life, argued that any area roofer with experience with rubber roofs should be able to fix it. He said a leak in rubber roofing in the front of the armory is responsible for 90% of the structure’s problems. He also said the major cracks he saw were in interior brick walls, not support walls.
“That is one of the most rugged buildings, strong buildings, that I’ve ever seen,” Sheridan argued. “To build a building like that would probably cost … $10 to $12 million.”
Sheridan was the only Selectboard member to vote against the motion to close the armory. He said he could not support disallowing town officials from working in the building and maintaining it.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.