NORTH PROVIDENCE – The town could still pursue the purchase of the former Masonic temple at 2121 Smith St., says Mayor Charles Lombardi, but without the motivation to use it for new central school administration offices, there is much less urgency on that front.
“We’re not as interested right now,” he said. “The purpose of that building was to relocate the School Department, not for any other reason.”
The Breeze previously reported on School Committee Chairperson Frank Pallotta declaring that the Masonic temple building won’t work for central offices because the town wouldn’t receive the major reimbursement it needs.
The mayor said he’s not sure whether the town really needs another event space to rent out, as suggested as a possibility for the Masonic temple building by Centredale developer Shane Piche for a Breeze story last week.
Lombardi is now turning his attention to the potential town purchase of two other properties in Centredale, even as the town and schools commence talks on a wider project to construct administrative offices elsewhere in the district and complete upgrades of additional elementary schools. No matter what, Lombardi and other officials maintain, the School Department will vacate 2240 Mineral Spring Ave. to have the property converted into parking.
The two properties Lombardi would like to see the town purchase are dilapidated buildings at 2045 Smith St., owned by Brother Properties. He said tearing the buildings down there would make space for more business parking and better traffic flow, allowing the town to clean up a messy corner in the process.
Lombardi said he spoke with Jason Sisto, owner of the former Masonic temple at the westerly gateway of the town, to give him a status update on the town’s thinking, saying Sisto isn’t in a hurry to a sell. Sisto had offered the nearly 9,000-square-foot property to the town for $650,000.
The mayor said that if the School Department can come up with an acceptable plan for developing new offices elsewhere that officials accept, especially with the substantial portion covered by state reimbursements, “my business sense is that’s a no-brainer.” He reiterated his previously reported stance that if school officials had told them that they’d hired an architect to look at a relocation of administrative offices, “I would not have put myself on the spot” with the potential purchase of the Masonic lodge property.
Lombardi says he disagrees with Pallotta that the schools need a full 9,200 square feet of space to replace current offices. He said he firmly believes that a building committee previously established to build two new elementary schools should be brought back to consider a combined project to build new central offices and complete upgrades to remaining elementary schools.
Pallotta was quoted in a story last week estimating the combined costs of new administrative space and renovations to three older elementary schools at $25 million, including $6 million apiece for each of the elementary schools. With reimbursements at a minimum baseline of 60 percent, such a project would cost the town only $10 million.
The goal would be to run this next proposed project in the same way as construction of the two previous elementary schools, said Lombardi, who noted that there were some $4 million in savings found, and that project was completed three or four months ahead of schedule.
