Belchertown weighs selling or redeveloping Tadgell School as $26M cost raises concerns

BELCHERTOWN — Pulled between the need for a community center and high construction costs, plans for the town-owned Tadgell School sway between selling the building or splitting it into a hybrid civic center and office space.

Built in 1922, the Tadgell housed hundreds of children with disabilities as part of the Belchertown State School. After the facility closed in 1992, the building briefly served as a elementary school until new school buildings were constructed to accommodate student population growth.

The former school is now atop the list of town-owned buildings that officials are looking to either redevelop or sell. Select Board members recently reviewed a $215,000 feasibility study completed by Westfield engineering firm Tighe & Bond and Kuhn Riddle Architecture in Amherst that shows three potential remodels for the building. Those options include converting the structure into a community center with 10 program rooms, creating a business hub for 25 tenants, or developing a housing complex for 50 residents.

“What we have in front of us and the final product we will have at the end of this will be a great marketing tool,” Town Manager Steve Williams said. “When you look at these visuals, I think it’s going to really help sell this building to a private developer.”

The goal of the project was not necessarily for the town to keep the building, but to decide the best course of action. After years of residents asking for more community space, Select Board members favored the civic center plans, until they heard that that option would cost an estimated $26 million.

“I was really in love with at least one, possible two of them (options), until I heard the $26 million price tag,” Select Board Chair Lesa Pearson said.

Concerned about cost, the board opted to explore splitting the building between a community center and business hub similar to the way CitySpace occupies Easthampton’s Old Town Hall or nonprofits leases space in The Hub at Market Square in Chicopee. The concern, Williams brought up, is this public-private partnership limits potential buyers.

“The hope would be that the business revenue being brought in would help support the municipal operations,” Select Board member Jen Turner said. “I don’t know how we would sell that because you would need a unique partner, partners potentially, to make that happen.”

Pearson and Select Board member Nicole Miner agreed to explore Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grants for any further redevelopment of Tagell. However, if grant money cannot cover the cost, the board is more interested in selling the property as is.

“If you were going to build a brand new building, just like what we went through with Jabish (school), it’s going to be $90 [million] to $100 million,” Turner said. “This is what we’re looking at for the future of our town. We have the buildings that we have. What are we going to do that we have and the surplus buildings that are unoccupied at the moment.”

Miner noted that the project would not involve tearing down the building, which she says has “good bones.”

The foundation, floors and walls are all sound, Tighe and Bond Principal Engineer Craig French agreed, but the leaking roof could reduce the purchasing price. Miner remarked she saw buckets in every room of Tadgell during her walk-through last week, and there were not enough buckets to catch all the leaks.

French said the price to stabilize the building is $3.4 million, of which $2 million would be for the roof. Belchertown planned to apply for grants to fund the replacement, but Turner notes the decaying process is happening faster than the grant cycle.

“I’m concerned about mold growing,” Select Board Member Jonathon Ritter said. “I mean summertime comes, the water is leaking. If you weren’t in there recently, there’s puddles of water and it’s all in the roof.”

A majority of the $26 million cost is replacing the heating, cooling, fire suppression and electrical systems in the building, French said. Windows and doors would also be replaced. Roughly 30% of the cost, at the moment, is contingency.

The community center option centers administrative offices and designates the wings of the building to 10 community spaces. The business hub includes 25 rooms from 200 square feet to 2,000 square feet, in addition to break rooms, a child care center and wellness center that developers like to include to attract tenants.

“We tried to be as careful as possible to introduce only new elements for construction where we felt it was reflective of the program,” Kuhn and Riddle Architect Lindsay Comeaux Schnarr said. “We tried to work with the existing building as much as possible”

The next step in the decision-making process will involve French and Comeaux Schnarr designing a hybrid community center and business building, as well as drafting operating costs for the Select Board to consider.

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