By Adam Swift
Town Council President Jim Letterie plans on bringing up further discussions on plans for the old middle school in the new year.
The Pauline Street site was one of two sites up for the home of a potential new fire station, but last week, the council voted to move forward with the town-owned basketball court property on Walden Street.
During the meeting, Precinct 2 Councilor John Munson asked about the future of the property and the possibility of the town receiving state funds to demolish the old middle school.
Letterie said there has been discussion at the last several meetings about the demolition of the school and auditorium, but not the gymnasium. He noted that there has also been some recent discussion about looking at the potential for five townhouse lots on a portion of the property.
“There has been one developer over the last many years, and it never went anywhere, interested in … redeveloping it as apartments,” said Letterie. “I don’t know what the thought process is on a substantial amount of units in that area.”
Letterie said there have been multiple plans and discussion about the property by the council over the years, but that there needs to be further discussion about moving forward with a project for the site. He said he is open to the council holding a roundtable meeting with public participation on the old middle school early in the new year.
“We really need to adopt a formal plan,” said Precinct 5 Councilor Joseph Aiello. “We need to dimensionalize things like how deep would the residential element be, where the utilities would be, what would happen to other parts of the project, what kind of green space would be provided.”
Aiello said some of the ideas for the site that have been discussed for part of the property in the past include building a boutique hotel, as well as building affordable housing that would allow teachers and public safety officials to be able to afford to live in the town.
“But we need a robust discussion about what can happen there, we need to think about a loose master plan but with some real dimensions on it to try to make sure we understand what we have and don’t have,” said Aiello. “I believe we have a lot of detail about the history of the ownership of the property, so we understand what’s possible without legislative needs, because some of that has been deemed to be possibly parkland in the past.”
Once the town has a formal plan for the entire site, Aiello said it could then decide on a sequence for releasing requests for proposals for development.
“We really need a workshop on it to understand it and then drive ourselves to a consensus master plan for that site,” said Aiello, adding that once the process gets underway, it could happen fast.
Letterie said he believes that discussions for the overall site need to include an ice rink and gymnasium.
“We’ve been incredibly fortunate to build three new schools, unfortunately, we have gone from four gyms to three,” said Letterie. “There is a huge need for gymnasium space. There is also a demand for parks and recreation, which provides an incredible service to our town, both young and old.”