×

Tupper Lake Town Hall entrance will get face-lift and wheelchair lift

The entrance to the Tupper Lake Town Hall will be demolished and a new one, compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, will be erected on the west corner of the building. The new entrance will feature a vertical lift for those who can not climb the flight of stairs. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — Plans are forming for renovations to Tupper Lake’s town hall entrance, allowing the center for town happenings to be accessible to all residents and giving the iconic building a fresh look.

Currently, town residents entering the hall to do anything from paying town and school taxes to applying for hunting and fishing licenses must climb two flights of stairs on the building’s front, five steps outside and four steps inside. The steps are not very large and the five outdoors quickly fill with snow and ice throughout the winter, requiring consistent shoveling, and creating a hazardous path to the hall.

“We have an elderly community in Tupper Lake that accesses those stairs all the time,” Littlefield said. “When you’re coming into this building right now, you’re climbing all the way up. We worry about anybody getting hurt.”

Littlefield and the town code enforcement officer Paul O’Leary said the town has always accommodated people who can’t make the climb, meeting them in the parking lot or in the bottom floor of the building. However, they have long wanted to open the offices to all residents.

“Everybody should have the opportunity to meet the supervisor in her office without any assistance,” O’Leary said.

The entrance to the Tupper Lake Town Hall will be demolished and a new one, compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, will be erected on the west corner of the building. The new entrance will feature a vertical lift for those who can not climb the flight of stairs. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

When the town was promised $100,000 in funding from state Sen. Betty Little in 2015, plans started to make the entrance compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and fix several other general issues with the old entrance.

While they were planning on completely rebuilding the entrance, they also moved it around the building’s front corner to the side.

The new entrance, a 400-square-foot addition, will sit on ground level, facing the parking lot. Visitors will take the stairs or ride a vertical lift to the main floor. Either way, they will be inside the heated and well-lit atrium.

The staircase in the current entrance will be annexed into the main floor and the outside portion will become part of the lawn.

“It’s actually kind of a sleek, simple project,” Littlefield said. “It’s not a massive renovation to this building, it’s just a small addition to make an accessible entryway.”

The stairs leading to the bottom floor will also be rearranged, creating closet space and allowing for the basement bathroom to become more accessible.

The town has not yet received estimates for the cost of the renovations, but is guaranteed $100,000 in funding from the Dormitory Authority of the state of New York. Littlefield said that the town may ask Little for additional funding now that plans are being drawn up, and that the town has also included the bathroom construction in an application to the Justices Grant Fund.

If it receives that grant, funds from the DASNY grant will not need to be used toward the bathroom’s construction.

The lift is estimated to cost between $24,000 and $28,000 as it will be custom made to fit the building’s unique height and location

Smaller details like materials are still being hashed out by the town and will depend on costs and funding. Littlefield and O’Leary said they hope funds allow them to honor the building’s character and history as the main office for the Oval Wood Dish Company.

The company, whose buildings and smokestack sit across the parking lot, played a large role in revitalizing Tupper Lake’s reputation as a logging town in the early 1900s. The building fittingly showcases a different type of hard wood as the wall paneling for each room, lining the town hall with the resource that created the town decades ago.

Tyler MacDonald, a project engineer from the Development Authority of the North Country said the architectural drawings are nearly 75 percent complete and that bidding will start in February with construction scheduled for the spring.

Littlefield said the project should be complete in time for school tax collection next September.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today