Southold Town is moving forward with construction of new highway department facilities that officials say will be a vast improvement over the existing facilities, which the town supervisor says are “squalid.”
At its regular meeting last night, the town board adopted a bond resolution amending one adopted in September 2013 to increase by $200,000 the amount being borrowed to build the facilities, which now carry a price tag of $3.7 million.
The HVAC bids came in higher than anticipated when the town first drew up the specs and approved a $3.5 million bond resolution in 2013, Supervisor Scott Russell said.
The town plans to construct a pre-engineered metal building and a pre-engineered pole barn at the highway department’s Peconic Lane site. The new building will contain a welding bay, service bays, administrative spaces and bathrooms. A consolidated fueling station, an outdoor truck washing area and material storage bins will also be constructed. Existing fuel storage tanks will be removed. The current garage will remain on site to be used for cold storage, Russell said.
“The existing building is dilapidated. It’s squalid conditions over there. We need a better facility,” the supervisor said.
The $3.7 million cost includes site work, installation or extension of necessary utilities and all other required ancillary work.
The bond resolution, unanimously approved by the town board, is subject to a permissive referendum pursuant to state law.
The board last night also accepted the bid of Diam-n-Blue Mechanical Corp. in the amount of $444,500 for heating, ventilation and air conditioning work in connection with the construction of a new Southold Town Highway maintenance building.
It also authorized the purchase of a new phone system for the highway department for $7,000, and approved the purchase of a used 1994 Ford L-9000 dump truck from Fine Care Landscape Inc., at the agreed price of $9,950.
It also approved highway department budget transfers totaling $46,707 to cover over-expended budget lines for items such as asphalt patch and resurfacing projects, payroll and overtime, parts and supplies and heavy duty vehicles (the purchase of the used dump truck).
The outdoor fuel depot was the first part of the project built, Russell said. The town hopes to break ground on the rest of the facilities before winter sets in and plans to complete the project by late spring, the supervisor said.
