After declining last year to move forward with a plan to shift recreational programming to the town’s former high school, the Town Council is expected this month to re-visit that option, though such a project will now carry a substantially higher – about $10 million – price tag. The council in March 2020 declined to move forward with a $16 million bonding proposal that, if approved by residents, would essentially have accomplished the same aims at the new plan. Since that March decision, conditions at the Broad Street Community Center have continued to deteriorate. The report updates a 2018 engineering study that offered three possible solutions to the recreation problem: Build a new community center for $27.2 million; renovate the current center “as new” for $21.2 million; or make upgrades to the Westfield facility for $16.1 million and move programming to that building. Anderson said both the community center and the school have both continued to deteriorate in the interim with brick issues at Westfield threatening to impact window integrity. He said the big jump in the project’s costs can be partially attributed to the “sky-rocketing” cost of construction materials because of the pandemic.
https://www.norwichbulletin.com/story/news/local/2021/09/10/killingly-recreational-programs-could-move-westfield-avenue-complex-10-million/8259356002/