Hightstown Hires Architects to Design New Borough Hall

Hightstown has retained the Maplewood-based architectural firm, the Goldstein Partnership, to design the new Borough Hall building. The original structure sustained damage in Hurricane Irene in August of 2011. 

Eli Goldstein presented the council and the public with his firm’s ideas for building the new Borough Hall and police building at Monday night’s meeting.

One option would be to reuse the existing Borough Hall structure and bring it up to code, with a two-story police department building constructed adjacently. This would require environmental remediation from damage sustained during Hurricane Irene, and also to get the old building up to code. 

Among the upgrades that would need to be made to the existing structure are cleaning up materials that are water-damaged, eliminating mold, repairing flood-damaged elements, replacing obsolete building systems, modifying the building to accommodate the police building addition, and upgrading the facilities to adhere to current building codes.

The other option would be to raze the original Borough Hall and build a new structure which would integrate both the police and municipal operations.

“The total footprint of the combined building will be smaller of these two individual buildings, because we’ll be able to optimize the relationship between all the internal functions,” said Goldstein in his presentation to the council. “In the case of [reconstructing the original Borough Hall], you can’t possibly be as efficient because the original Borough Hall was never designed to be optimized.”

Current borough operations are based out of the public works building and a modular building. 

The estimated time line of the project, should funding from the insurance company be in order, would put the project up for bid in the winter, according to Goldstein. The project would then break ground in the spring of 2014 and be completed in the spring of 2015.

Councilwoman Doran indicated that retaining the Goldstein Partnership’s service was the next step in moving forward with Borough Hall construction.

“The insurance company basically said, if you want to proceed, you need to have an architect and you need to have the building tested, and so that’s where we are right now,” said Councilwoman Doran. “Those of you who think we’re putting the cart before the horse, the insurance company has been very clear that this is the horse, that we need to hire the architect to proceed…and stop running on hypotheticals.”

The building’s cost would be approximately $400 per square foot, an estimate that Goldstein gave based on past experience with municipal and police buildings. The estimated cost of constructing the police building would be $2 million, with the municipal building coming in under that figure. Goldstein noted that the price of the municipal building would depend on how it is related to the police building. 

“Mr. Goldstein will be evaluating the [existing] building to see if it is cost effective and can be brought up to code,” said Police Director and Interim Borough Administrator James LeTellier. “Mr. Goldstein will report to and recommend to the council what are the options, and what is the most cost effective way to proceed.”