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Details of $750K Bond Request Randolph citizens will be asked to vote Tuesday to approve a $750,000 bond, payable over 20 years, to bring the 100-year-old Chandler Music Hall and Gallery buidling fully up to codes and provide the restroom facilities that have been conspicuously inadequate. The project is the result of more than a year-long consultation by the management and directors of Chandler with the architectural firm of Gossens Bachman. Although it is managed under a 20-year lease by the Chandler Center for the Arts, the building is owned by the town itself, and the town's Capital Budget Committee recommended placing the bond before the voters. Unanimously, the selectboard agreed that the bond should be included on the Town Meeting ballot. The $750,000 bond would pay for public safety work, including sprinklering the entire building, and meeting the accessibility codes that gives access to all floors of the building. Energy efficiency work will make the building less expensive to heat. Finally, badly needed restroom facilities would be provided for the building. The restroom supply —two stalls for the women, one for the men (plus two urinals) and a couple of miscellaneous toilets for those who know how to find them—is utterly inadequate when 500 people attend shows. The annual cost of paying the bond would be $55,000, or about $20 per year in taxes for a person in a $150,000 house. Chandler officials—and Selectboard Chair Jim Hutchinson, who strongly supports the project—say that the building has been well cared-for and improved in ordinary ways over the years of its 30-year renaissance but that such major code compliance renovations ought to be done now that the building is turning 100. "Supporting Chandler is a long-term good idea for the town of Randolph," Hutchinson said this week. "The fact that we were given that building 100 years ago was a blessing, and the current efficient organization is also a blessing. For us to perform the maintenance that any prudent owner of an asset would just makes sense. People around the state identify Randolph as a cultural center because of Chandler and local business people tell me it draws money into the town." Village Fire Chief Jay Collette, in a letter to The Herald this week, stressed the importance of the public safety upgrades that are being proposed as part of the bond issue. The code compliance and deferred maintenance work is related to, but separate from, a hoped-for expansion of the building. The expansion, which, it is hoped, will be financed by a variety of grants and gifts, will put an addition on the rear of the building and upgrade the building's technical offerings. The town is not being asked to pay for any of the expansion, but any such expansion is likely to trigger state and federal enforcement of code violations which are now "grandfathered." Details of the Proposed Maintenance Following are the details of the work that would be done with the proceeds of the bond, if approved on Tuesday: STRUCTURAL ($61,000) • Reënforcement of the upper gallery floor system, which is too poorly supported for many activities, and other miscellaneous structural upgrades. PUBLIC SAFETY ($271,000) • Additional new exit from the Music Hall balcony, to provide a code-compliant exit via the upper gallery, additional fire-rated doors. • Sprinklering the entire building, and other fire-protection measures, including a water service upgrade, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and fire detectors. ACCESSIBILITY ($378,000) • Elevator and elevator shaft, new ramp system at the front of the building, with designated accessible parking in the adjacent lot. • Renovating and adding ADA-compliant restroom facilities in the basement of the gallery bulding. ENERGY EFFICIENCY ($40,000) • Efficiency upgrades throughout, including increased insulation, lighting, weatherstripping, and controls. |
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