WALLET ALERT: New Davidson Town Hall estimates to be discussed Tuesday

In the agenda published for Tuesday's upcoming Davidson Town Board meeting, Commissioners will get an update on the proposal to convert the old CMS Davidson IB Middle School building on South Street into Town and CMS offices.  This project along with converting the existing Town Hall into a dedicated Police and Fire facility is expected to be put up for a bond referendum by the new Board.  (The former Board was going to do this without a referendum.)

The hope for taxpayers with the CMS IB building conversion was that it would cost significantly less.  Those hopes will likely be dashed on Tuesday when the Board hears an update on the project per the agenda posted on Friday.

Back in August 2017, the old Board decided to go forward with a $13.2 million set of projects.  When the Board hears an update on Tuesday on the alternate plan, the numbers will actually be MORE.

To be fair, the two plans are not apples to apples.  The new plan includes $1.77 million more for the renovations to the existing Town Hall for public safety expansion to bring it up to a 20 year plan.  The old Board approved a 10 yr plan for public the safety improvements, but would have financed it over 20 years.  Financing a 10 year plan for 20 years doesn't make economic sense.  Still when accommodating that, the new plan is about $800,000 more than the old plan.

Also, the number for the IB renovation does not include renovations to the gym on the property.  That facility was one of the big draws to this option.  

The Board has a vert tight timeline to decide what to do here if they are going to get this on the ballot for this year.

It will be interesting to see what they do on Tuesday.