- Details
- Category: Current Issue
caption:
The whole Municipal Complex from the School Street side. The two-story Town Hall is on the right and the library, with its soaring roof, is on the left. Many more photos posted last week on FB at Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger. Linda Lemmon photo.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — After a “normal” work life of opposite walls close enough to touch with outstretched arms, town and library employees are happy about getting the space the town needs in the new Municipal Complex.
The project, which is still on time and under its $19 million-plus budget, is slated to open mid-to late August, according to Town Administrator Elaine Sistare. And officials already have big plans for the badly needed space. Enough space to work. Storage space. Space for learning. Space for helping. Space for honoring Putnam’s history and the arts. Space.
The monstrous community room can be divided with moving panels. Senior citizens are welcome there from 9 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, according to town officials. They can attend events in the morning, have lunch, and then perhaps attend more events after lunch. The Thames Valley Council for Community Action, Inc. (TVCCA) Meals on Wheels will use the adjacent “prep kitchen” to warm meals for seniors.
That community room will also offer extra space if a town meeting in the nearby selectmen’s chambers requires more space.
Mayor Barney Seney said the town is currently looking for approval from the state to move both voting districts to the Municipal Complex. The Murphy Park and the Fox Road Garage polling places would close.
Even the vault is huge, measuring about 900 square feet. But it has to be, Sistare said, because there is a hospital in the town and space is needed to secure birth and death records.
The great expanse of space in the attached library will allow adults, teens and children to spread out. The children’s librarian, for example, can leave her materials in the children’s room. She won’t have to put them away because her current sparse space is needed for another group.
Priscilla Colwell, library director, noted about a third of the space is for adults and includes three study areas and a conference room. A wavy thin wood panel ceiling will float above that area. Closer to the center, where a soaring glass outside wall will be, she said there will be computers the public can use. Circulation desks will be like a “divider” between the adult and the teen/children sections. Most windows are framed. In much of the space the ash frames are stained Honey. In the administration’s space the frames are stained Cherry. Light fixtures are coming.
Tiling is going in including tan “plank like” tile in the restroom. Tile runs a few inches up the wall and is capped with a thin metal rim.
The grand floating staircase inside the main entrance is waiting for its opaque glass sidewalls. Outside the two-story main entrance will be swathed in charcoal metal panels. The arcade that runs along the front will have a black ceiling, according to Downes Construction Company Project Manager Ed Ladd.
Seney said “This complex will serve Putnam for generations.”
.