Greenville looking at special town meeting for YES Project funding

GREENVILLE — With about $1 million needed to cover costs for the Yes Project community building, money that has not already been secured through grants and fundraisers could come from the town of Greenville.

After hearing from Yes Project Committee members during an Aug. 20 select board meeting, the board voted to proceed with a special town meeting to let residents decide. The date of Monday, Sept. 15 was mentioned for a meeting at the Greenville Consolidated School, which would avoid the regular select board meeting dates of Wednesday, Sept. 3 and Sept. 17.

Several years ago the Moosehead Caring for Kids Foundation received a federal grant of $1,561,000 to build a new facility on the school campus on Pritham Avenue. The new building would be located approximately where the former Nickerson Elementary stood. The foundation designated the Town of Greenville as the subrecipient of the grant, which means that the town will build the new facility and that the new building will be a municipal facility.

The foundation, town and school have been working together to plan and construct the building, which has yet to be named. The building will house three collaborative activities, a childcare center, public pre-school classrooms and a community recreation center.

The three collaborative teams have formed a committee, the YES Project (the acronym stands for youth, education and sport) to plan.

The idea for a building for pre-kindergarten, child care and a recreation center began around 2021, said Don Hodapp of the Yes Project Committee. Giving an overview of the project timeline, he said funds were raised for a preliminary study which determined 9,000 square feet would be needed for all three tenants.

“What we’ve done so far is an environmental study, there are no environmental issues on it,” Hodapp said. 

A second architectural study was conducted for a “a more buildable building,” he said. This request for proposals was sent to seven construction companies, three came back and each was over what the committee had budgeted, so work was done to bring the costs down by simplifying the building design to reduce the footprint by about 1,200 square feet.

The original design called for a wooden structure, with bids ranging from $4.4 to $5 million.

“We asked our contractors ‘what can you do to get us to where we need to be?’ What can you do to drive costs out of this building?’ We let them decide that,” Hodapp said.

Two of the firms said they could build a metal structure, similar to Greenville’s new public safety building, and this reduced the price to approximately $4.1 to $4.6 million.

“To date this group, which you have to applaud them, has raised all of $3.3 million,” Hodapp said, saying the group feels there are not too many other non-municipal funding sources.

“We have been extremely fortunate to be in a community where businesses and the individuals have given and given and given,” said Jennifer Clark of the Yes Project Committee. “We did individual donation drives, we did separate business drives and we’ve done just multiple fundraisers that were just for the project and some that were for the foundation.”

“My belief is that there just isn’t a lot more money to get,” she said. 

The question is how will the rest of the funding be secured, Hodapp said, with a $1 million figure mentioned.“We’re respectfully asking the town,” he said.

“We understand it supports a lot of the activities that this board is trying to encourage including affordable housing, child care and school development for children,” Hodapp added, saying the project also includes supporting jobs.

“Inflation has definitely killed us,” he said, saying this is not an excuse but an explanation. 

“If we continue to wait, costs are going to continue to go up,” Hodapp said.

When asked about a project timeline once all the funding is in place, Hodapp said there are still some things that need to be done from an engineering perspective and contractors need to work with their architects. 

“It’s going to put us into winter, which is a bad time to start as we all know, and that’s going to allow us to start in the spring and they’re talking about 9-11 months to get it done,” he said.

The select board has supported the work that has been done by the Yes Project Committee but the reality is municipal funding would be coming from taxpayers, Select Chair Geno Murray said.

“I don’t disagree with the project, as far as taxpayers we’re squeezed pretty tight as it is,” board member Bonnie DuBien said.

Selectperson But Whitman said the board has supported the entire project but “it still comes down to, to me, to the taxpayers — that’s the bottom line.”

In other business, the board approved four amendments to the vendors ordinance fee schedule after hearing the proposals from Planning Board Chair John Contreni that the group developed.

The first is to set seasonal permits costs at $1,000 and seasonal is now a full calendar year instead of five months.

A one day fee is $50 regardless of the day of the week, and mobile food banks will now pay $350 per unit.

Vendor stands, which include tables, benches, racks, hand or push carts or any other fixture or device which is not required to be a registered vehicle and is used for the display, storage or transportation of articles offered by sale, would require a fee of $10 a day.