A house at 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland, right, is shown with Oakland’s police department, center, and fire department, left, in downtown on Wednesday. The town plans to demolish the house and hopes to one day build a new town office on the property. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

OAKLAND — The town has purchased property at the corner of Fairfield Street and Kennedy Memorial Drive for $180,000 in hopes of building a new Town Office there in the future.

The property at 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive is a .01-acre parcel and includes a two-story house with an attached apartment that will be torn down, according to Town Manager Kelly Pinney-Michaud.

“We closed on it last Friday,” Pinney-Michaud said Tuesday. “We’re proud owners of it now and hopefully, before the snow flies, we’ll get it torn down. That’s the plan.”

Residents at a special meeting in July voted to purchase the property, which is adjacent to the police and fire stations, as well as the town office, all of which sit on 1.25 acres of town-owned land.

Oakland Town Manager Kelly Pinney-Michaud, seen at the Town Office in 2023, says the town plans to demolish a house it just purchased. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel file

Another meeting will be held in about two years for voters to determine whether to build a new Town Office, or the question may be placed on a November ballot, Pinney-Michaud said. The current office building is old, crowded and needs to be replaced, she said. It also is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Every time I print in my office, my lights flicker, and it’s the same thing out at the front desk,” she said. “The citizens coming in, we have no place for them to sit. They have to stand. It’d be nice to have some benches for them to sit on if they have to wait. It’s time. It’s cold in the winter; it’s hot in the summer.”

The town office has three floors, with the finance director’s office and recreation department on the top floor; the town manager, town clerk and customer service offices on the main floor; and code enforcement and assessors offices in the basement.

The town for years has been working on plans to improve municipal service buildings. In 2017, the town built the new $1.05 million police station and in 2020, a $2.6 million fire station. Pinney-Michaud said an assessment was done and the town decided to replace the worst building first.

The town wanted to build a new Town Office without having to raise taxes, she said. So officials hope that when the police station building is paid off in 2029, the $80,000 a year payment for that would then be targeted for new Town Office construction. The town continues to pay for the fire station on a 30-year plan.

Pinney-Michaud served on the building committee for both the police and fire stations and she recalled a town meeting where people talked about developing a municipal campus. By purchasing 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive, a town office could be built on one floor without having to install an elevator, which was estimated to cost $200,000 and would require maintenance and annual inspections, she said.

A house at 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland, right, is shown with Oakland’s police department, center, and fire department, left, in downtown on Wednesday. The town plans to demolish the house and hopes to one day build a new town office on the property. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

The town bought 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive from the Worthley family and most recently a family member lived there but it is now vacant, according to Pinney-Michaud. The 1,700-square-foot house, built in 1900, has wooden siding. The town was given the go-ahead to demolish it, she said.

“We had a guy from the state come up and do an inspection for asbestos and lead,” Pinney-Michaud said. “There were improvements made to the property over the years and that all had been removed.”

An initial design for a new Town Office that was considered previously had two floors and was estimated to cost $3.4 million, but officials decided that was too costly, according to Pinney-Michaud. She thinks if the architect redesigns it to a one-story building and it could be built on some of the property at 1113 Kennedy Memorial Drive, the cost can be lowered.

In 1998-99, the town looked at building one public safety building that would include the police and fire departments, as well as a Town Office, and the price was about $4 million, according to Pinney-Michaud. Residents voted to reject the plan, she said.

After the house is removed on the newly-purchased property, the empty lot may be used for various activities, according to Pinney-Michaud.

“Right now we’re going to demolish it and make the corner all nice and pretty,” she said. “We’ll probably hay and seed it, possibly use it for Christmas tree sales for the Lion’s Club, maybe have a Christmas tree there. It’s going to really change the landscape of coming into Oakland, I think.”