Building Committee, Selectmen Talk DPW Facility Warrant Articles

The Permanent Municipal Building Committee Wednesday night voted to support three articles for the 2012 Annual Town Meeting Warrant related to a new Public Works facility in Wayland.

The PMBC’s support came the night after Wayland’s Board of Selectmen voted to submit the three articles for inclusion in the warrant.

The first article designates River Road, near the town’s current salt shed, as the future location of the new facility, currently proposed at just less than 46,000 square feet. 

Other possible locations, at the current Department of Public Works Garage on Main Street and near the current transfer station on Boston Post Road, were considered at one time, but representatives from Weston & Sampson, the firm engaged in a feasibility study, said the River Road location proved most appropriate.

The Main Street location sits on a capped landfill, which quickly made building a new facility there “cost prohibitive,” Weston & Sampson Project Manager Jamie Fair said Wednesday night. The site on Boston Post Road, he added, was viable, but in a “point-by-point breakdown of pros and cons” the River Road location proved a better option.

The two other articles appropriate funds to continue the project in some form. One article appropriates $725,000 to continue the process to the point of producing construction documents, but does not go so far as actual construction. The second article seeks $12.75 million to complete the project, from carrying out the design work to building the final facility.

Both the selectmen and the PMBC said they viewed these articles as placeholders that would permit the continued work on a new facility, work that has been in discussions for many years.

“It deserves a placeholder in that we have been talking about a DPW building forever,” Selectmen Steve Correia said Tuesday, adding that it had been put on the back burner as the new high school to precedence. “The time has come to look at new projects going forward. It deserves our attention.”

PMBC members said that if the town supports only the $725,000 article at the coming April Town Meeting, the committee would consider returning to voters in the fall, when further along in the design process, to secure funds for the actual construction.

The Finance Committee will hold a warrant hearing on Monday, Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. The full text of all warrant articles is expected to post on the Town of Wayland website by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19.