Old Village Hall finally goes up for sale, bids wanted

MILLERTON — The Millerton Village Board is hoping for the highest bidder as it drafts an RFP (Request for Proposals) to place the 19th Century Old Village Hall on the auction block, so to speak. The building sits in Millerton’s Main Street Historic District, which was approved in 2010. The building also has state and federal historic designations.

According to Mayor Jenn Najdek, the board decided at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 22 (held a day late due to the Presidents Day holiday), to finally sell the currently-closed Village Hall at 21 Dutchess Ave. in Millerton.

The building has not been in use since 2020, when the board said the cost to make necessary repairs didn’t make sense considering its annual $800,000 or so budget. The heating system needed work, for one, but the building also needed to be brought up to Americans with Disability Act (ADA) compliance, which would have added significantly to the price tag.

The entire village staff had to vacate Village Hall two years ago as it could no longer be heated during the cold Northeast winters. The municipal offices have been relocated to both 1 John St. and 50 Main St., until finally moving to its current digs at 5933-59 North Elm Ave. (Route 22). Village Hall has been there since March of 2020 and according to Village Clerk Kelly Kilmer, who said the space is great, the lease to was just signed to remain there for at least a couple of more years.

Back in 2020, the Village Board also wanted to relocate the Millerton Police Department from the second floor to the ground floor of the Old Village Hall on Dutchess Avenue, where the Nutrition Center was formerly located.

“There were concerns from board’s perspective, if we start laying it out, upon inspection, it would come out that this is wrong and needs to be repaired, etc.,” said Najdek. “It was originally that we received that Community Development Block Grant for both the town and the village to make a joint municipal office, and make it ADA compliant. We did have an engineer look at it and a designer do so, but there were some structural issues in the basement…”

The mayor added what began as a $300,000 project soon grew into a $350,000 project. The board was concerned those costs would continue to grow, with no signs of stopping.

“The costs of really bringing the building back to life were pretty high,” she said. “And in years’ past and in conversations with the town we thought down road it would be great for the two of us to have a joint municipal facility. But this building certainly would not have served that purpose…”

Of course, the Village Board considered other options to save the one-time firehouse, library and residence in the historic district.

“Our thought was to try to get grant funding to repair the building to its historic nature,” said the mayor. “It served its purpose of a municipal building. But the cost of that, in my opinion, we discussed at the August board meeting, is overly burdensome. And then you could take out a state historic park preservation grant, but they have matching pieces. And then you think of what the village has going on now, and to spread ourselves thinner and do a construction project, doesn’t make sense.”

The last appraisal for Village Hall, which is a two-story fading gray shingled house with a third-story tower built in 1904 was in April of 2020 for $165,000. Of course, since then, property values in the area have risen.

Its historic name, for the record, is the E.H. Thompson Hose Co. House/Millerton Public Library/Millerton Village Hall.

Victor Cornelius of Endeavor Municipal Development helped the Village Board assess its options for the building, and what different funding sources might look like for both the village and potential buyers.

Because of the building’s historic landmark status, Cornelius explained the buyer has choices in terms of funding, including Preservation Tax Credits, which would allow the owner/developer to apply for 30% tax credits from both the state and the federal government for all construction costs related to the historic structure through the Department of the Interior’s National Trust for Historic Preservation. (Each area of construction must cost in excess of $5,000 to be eligible.)

There is also the possibility of tax deductions on easements, in which the owner/developer would agree to a preservation easement on the building’s envelope before closing on the property.

Doing so would “restrict façade changes to a pre-defined ‘restoration’ concept, keeping it aesthetically within the Main Street Historic District’s preservation targets,” according to Cornelius.

There are other options for both the buyer and seller.

Bottom line, said the mayor, Village Hall is a great building for the right use. Perhaps, she said, it could be bought and converted to help with the local housing crisis.

“It could be great,” she said, adding she’d like the facade to remain the same and the board may add a stipulation to the RFP requiring that condition. “It needs some love… I’d love to see the exterior look as great as it should and have some real valuable use… I just want to create a little buzz.”