PAUL SMITHS - By the end of 2010, the Brighton town hall could be restored to how it looked 95 years ago, with government offices now housed there moved to a new addition.

Currently, the supervisor and town clerk work in the same hall where justice court and town board meetings are held. They will be moved to a 17-by-19-foot addition and housed in an open room there, and the hall will be restored, as much as possible, to how it looked in 1914, town Supervisor John Quenell said after a special board meeting Wednesday.

The plywood partitions in the main hall that currently mark off some office space would be removed, Quenell said, and the windows and doors will be restored to period style. The door, which is the original one, would be refinished. The tiles on the floor and ceiling would be removed, the original-style wood flooring and tongue-and-groove ceiling restored. Period-style lighting would also be put in, and the bathroom and kitchen redone.

"The idea is to get it back to 1914 as much as possible," Quenell said.

The town board would still meet in the hall, and court would be held there. A variety of other groups already meet there, such as Boy and Girl Scouts and the Rainbow Lake Association, and the Brighton food pantry is there.

The town board approved, by a 4-0 vote Wednesday, hiring the architectural firm Crawford and Stearns for $18,490, to update the bid specifications so the project can be bid again. The architects would also help evaluate the bids and visit the site frequently during construction.

Quenell said construction is expected to begin in June and be finished by December. The new addition would be the first thing built, and the town would then relocate its office space to the addition as the rest of the hall is being restored.

The project was originally put out to bid in March 2008, and this resulted in a $385,750 total cost estimate for the project. The town had other sources of funding, including private donations and $50,000 in member item grants from state Sen. Betty Little and Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, but the bids all had to be rejected because they were still more than the $200,000 the town was willing to spend at the time. The town then applied for a Historical Preservation Grant under the federal Environmental Protection Act, and a $200,000 matching grant was awarded on May 15, 2009, meaning this grant will pay for half the project for a cost of up to $200,000. The timing was such that construction couldn't begin last year, however.

The amount the town will have to pay out of its fund balance will depend on whether more private donations are received. At present, all but $93,875 of 2008's $385,750 estimate would be covered by grants, member items, private donations and the town's current capital project fund balance.

The town had a $228,000 total fund balance on Jan. 1, and it is estimated, without deducting for the project, that it will have a $183,000 fund balance on Dec. 31.

The town will not have to worry about following the Wicks Law for the project, Quenell said. The law, which requires separate contracts for construction projects for different areas such as plumbing, heating and electricity, only kicks in upstate if the project costs more than $500,000.

The town hall, an early example of craftsman/bungalow-style architecture, was originally designed by master builder Ben Muncil, who built many of the famous camps on the St. Regis lakes, according to the Web site of Historic Saranac Lake. Muncil also built many small bungalow-style homes for local residents, the Church of the Assumption in Gabriels, St. Paul's Church in Bloomingdale, and the White Pine Camp on Osgood Pond, where President Calvin Coolidge stayed in summer 1926.

Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondack

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