Senior Center Building Board Studying 3 Construction Bids

The city is entertaining three bids ranging from $4.59 million to $5.46 million to construct a new senior center and the Eckersley-Hall Building Committee expects to agree to a contract at its Aug. 20 meeting, according to the Hartford Courant.

Montagno Construction of Waterbury bid $4.594 million, Aresco Construction of Middletown offered the job for $4.86 million and Haynes Construction of Seymour quoted $5.459 million, the Courant reports.

The $4.85 million project to renovate the Eckersley Hall Building on Durant Terrace is tentatively set to begin in September and should be done within nine to 12 months.

In June 2012, the State Historic Preservation Council approved placing the Eckersley-Hall school building on the State Register of Historic Places.

Last May, council chambers was packed the night the building committee and as Silver/Petricelli + Associates presented its architectural renderings of the proposed senior center.

In April 2012, Mayor Dan Drew hired Wojas Architecture of Middlefield to design plans for incorporating the senior center into the space now occupied by council chambers after he said costs had ballooned out of control. Weeks later, he backed away from a proposal to alter the senior center building committee nixed an architect’s preliminary concept.