(Photo provided by Kevin L. Smith of The Cortland Voice).
The town of Homer recently signed a contract with a Syracuse-based architecture firm to put together renderings for town hall basement renovations.
Crawford & Stearns will draw up plans for renovations that include the Village of Homer Police Department and the senior center. Town supervisor Fred Forbes is hopeful the renderings will go out to bid by September.
With the goal in mind to receive bids in the fall, Forbes hopes a contractor would want to start the renovation project during the winter season.
Forbes, who noted the project could take 4-to-6 months to complete, said contractors would be able to work “without the potential of incumbent weather.”
“It might not come together as fast as we like,” Forbes said. “We won’t know until we put it out there.”
Homer officials plan to use a variety of funding options. The town will use $320,000 in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding, following the green light from congressman Marc Molinaro’s office to use the funds for a public safety project.
About $100,000 is being pledged from the village of Homer’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) funds. The town is also looking to secure a $200,000 state grant, along with other shared services and the potential use of reserve funds.
“Not many buildings would qualify more than ours would between the court, assessor, the village and the town, and the code office,” Forbes said of the town hall in terms of state grants.
The project has been a topic of discussion for two years, Forbes said. It started when Cortland County cut funding for senior centers across the county. This led to Forbes reaching out to village police chief Bob Pitman about moving his police station to town hall.
“When we’re done, there’s still going to be a place to meet (for the seniors),” Forbes said.
Forbes noted it took about five months for him and Pitman to come up with plans. It came together, he added, and “the timing is right.”
“If this had come to fruition two years ago, it might have been cost-prohibited compared to the funding we’re able to have now,” Forbes said.
The village police department used to call town hall its home up until the mid-1980s. The department moved to the former village recreation building on South Main Street and stayed there until the early 2000s, according to Pitman in the past.
Since then, the department has been housed at a former train station on James Street in the village. Pitman, who’s been the village police chief since 2016, noted last year that the building where the department is currently located is leased out to a third-party company and not owned by the village.
As Forbes has mentioned in the past, the town hall is the largest municipal building in Cortland County without a police presence.
