HARDWICK – During an evening meeting last Wednesday, Jan. 21, town officials and an architect laid out problems with the buildings occupied by three of Hardwick’s essential services and plans for a new campus to accommodate them, said Town Manager David “Opie” Upson.
courtesy photo
The Creamery Road property where the town garage is now was considered for housing redevelopment in 2021, with plans to move the public works department elsewhere. However Hardwick flooding at the fire station led town officials to begin exploring options to move that building while staying close to downtown Hardwick. That led to exploration of the Creamery Road property as a campus for the department of public works, in deteriorating buildings there; the fire station, regularly flooded on Wolcott Street and Hardwick Rescue, in a cramped building on Creamery Road.
In November 2024 Vermont Integrated Architecture (VIA) was selected to begin looking into designs, with planning happening over the past year.
Select Board Chair Eric Remick and Upson say a conversation about the project will happen with the wider community at this year’s March 3 town meeting.
Development of a complete design package could begin as soon as June this year with town voter approval of a bond at a special meeting following the March town meeting.
If that schedule holds, new facilities could be ready as soon as the beginning of 2028, according to a preliminary project timetable…
Hardwick Rescue has needed larger accommodations for quite some time, as its services have been called on significantly more over the years since its founding. With 50 staff and volunteers answering 1024 calls in 2025, its board had already begun looking to expand. There’s been interest in fundraising for the project to add a third bay for vehicles and create accommodations for those sleeping overnight, replacing a mattress thrown on the floor in a corner.
The 1963 Hardwick fire station lies in the first area to flood when waters of the Lamoille River and Cooper Brook rise, said Upson.
While FEMA is requiring the town to look into the cost of raising the building by three feet, it’s clear that would send more water into the Atkins Field neighborhood, he said. That would improve the fire station, while causing more harm elsewhere.
Upson said the town hopes to ask that funds offered for a FEMA buyout be increased by the additional cost of raising the building, which would help fund that portion of the new campus.
The deteriorating department of public works garage, built in 1972, is in need of significant repairs, estimated to be $500,000 by Tom Fadden, though a lesser amount might get the building through a few years while a new facility is built.
The quonset hut, older still, is considered historic and might be disassembled and offered for another use elsewhere.
Architect Ashar Nelson, with VIA has been working with the town to evaluate the needs of each facility and offer preliminary designs that share overlapping functions, which include a meeting room, sleeping bunks, storage and rest rooms.
Nelson presented scenarios with from just under 25,000 square feet to a little over 29,000 square feet and a total shared budget ranging from $13.1 million to $14.8 million. Several million dollars of that are allocated to site costs.
Construction costs break down with 28% allocated to Hardwick Rescue at $3.2M, 31% to the fire department at $3.6M and 41% to public works at $4.6M.
Remick said the FY27 budget to be passed at this year’s town meeting includes $150,000 for the first year’s bond payments in anticipation of a positive town bond vote.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
