FARMINGTON — A Church Street building will be demolished as early as next week to make way for the development of a new public parking lot.
The 4,754-square-foot building at 112 Church St. was bought by the town in November, so the town could tear it down and put in a 28-space parking lot after an advisory committee determined the property could alleviate parking problems in downtown.
Last week, selectmen accepted a $149,245 bid from Jordan Excavation, of Kingfield, to demolish the building and construct the parking lot. With the final contracts for the project signed on Tuesday, the building could be demolished by the end of next week, town manager Richard Davis said Wednesday.
The project is being funded through the downtown tax increment financing reserve account. After the town bought the building for $79,000 and paid for several surveys on it, about $98,000 is available in the fund for the rest of the project.
Davis said selectmen will have to expand the TIF to capture about $50,000 more in revenue, which he says is not expected to be a problem.
Aside from the demolition and parking lot construction, the Church Street parking lot project will include reshaping adjacent Cony Street to allow water to properly drain from the parking lot since there is no drainage system under the site. Once completed, one-third of the water collected on the surface of the lot will flow toward Church Street to a catch basin at the end of the street, another third will flow toward Cony Street and the remaining third will flow out the back of the lot toward High Street.
Designing the lot to drain water that way means the town won’t have to build a retaining wall, which Davis said would have escalated costs.
When broken down, project costs include $33,178 for the demolition of the building, $68,758 for the construction of the parking lot, $36,909 for reshaping and repaving Cony Street and $10,400 for concrete curbing.
Included in the town’s contract with Jordan Excavation is another drainage project on High Street that is unrelated to the construction of the Church Street parking lot.
If the project stays on track, the parking lot will be completed in September, Davis said.
Lauren Abbate — 861-9252
Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate
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