Three projects were approved at referendum recently, approvals that were just the start of a long road to the projects’ completion.

Town officials report that progress has been made on all three items—the school renewal plan, the Academy Community center, and sale of the former Island Avenue School—with an assist via the arrival of more state funding for the Academy project.

First Selectwoman Peggy Lyons said the town had been banking on $4 million via state bonding and recently learned more is on the way.

“We had the $4 million, which was announced last month, and we just got notified that we are getting another $200,000 from the Department of Economic Development for a hazardous mitigation study for the school,” said Lyons. “That just helps to chip away at all the costs that we will incur. These are things we have to do that would normally come out of the construction budget, so this is another important step for the town.”

The study is an action required by state mandates that had been factored into the renovation budget. These monies are critical to helping defray costs for taxpayers, Lyons said, and other avenues of funding are still being pursued, including reimbursement for some of the HVAC costs at the Brown School.

“We are still planning on applying for a number of other sources of funding and once the Building Committee is up and running, we will be focusing on that. So, I think we are off to a great start,” Lyons said. “We are doing everything we can to chip away at these costs. We want to position ourselves to go after as much funding as possible.

“Especially with Academy we are going after some of these historic preservation grants,” Lyons continued. “We were fortunate to get that $4 million, which is 25 percent of the budget, but we hope to get even more. This will obviously affect the bonding costs burden on these projects so that is great for taxpayers.”

The closing of the sale of Island Avenue School, which had been expected to be completed by this time, was delayed slightly due to a small zoning issue, Lyons said.

“There was a minor hiccup that had to do with” the Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC), said Lyons. “There are portable units at Island that we erected 20 years ago, and the PZC had approved them only on a temporary basis and the town had never renewed that permit. So, we just had to go through the planning and zoning process to permanently renew it, because the school wanted to make sure the permit was still valid when they purchased the property. It was basically they wanted assurance that the portable classrooms were allowed, so that took a few weeks to get straightened out.”

The closing on what is referred to as the Janssen property occurred several weeks ago as part of the school renovation project. The parcel off of Green Hill Road will be the site of the new elementary school and its official purchase has kicked that project into high gear, according to Lyons.

“One was $1.3 million going out [the Janssen purchase], and one was $2.3 million coming in [the Island Avenue sale],” Lyons said. “There are always a few little back-and-forths on projects like this, but we are excited to have this part of the project finalized. The fact the town is making this a sustainable school…is going to be a really nice showcase for the community. A lot of time and effort went into these discussions over the last 2 ½ years, and I’m just thrilled that we have got to this point, and that it was validated so strongly by the town.”

The intention now is that the new pre-K to 5 elementary school on the Green Hill Campus on Mungertown Road will be open for the fall of 2025, Lyons said.

The building committees for the two projects are also being formed as the projects gain momentum, said Lyons. Graham Curtis, who was a member of the Library Building Committee and is on the Coastal Resiliency Committee as well, has been appointed chair of the elementary school project, and the Academy Building Committee formation is currently in process, Lyons said.

“At Academy, we haven’t fully appointed the two committees. One is the actual Building Committee, which will be composed of people who have a construction and building related expertise, and then there is the Advisory Committee, which will be comprised of people who are users of the building,” Lyons said. “We are trying to make sure the different groups who will use the building have some sort of way to channel recommendations to the building committee. It is good to have this community input and how they envision the space, so this is a conduit for that.”