BRISTOL — A bit of inconvenience now will lead to a better experience in the future as the municipal offices move from Lake Street to the new town hall at 5 School Street.
With the exception of the police department, which will remain in the Bristol Municipal Building, other town offices, including that of the town clerk/tax collector, town administrator, assessing, land use, health, welfare, finance/human resources, and Bristol Media/TV, are spending the week of Oct. 16-23 making the move to new offices in the former Newfound Family Practice building. During the transition, they will have limited ability to take telephone calls or respond to email communications. Those needing to pay bills will be able to do so through the town’s website, www.townofbristolnh.org.
The offices will reopen at the new town hall on Thursday, Oct. 24, and there will be a grand opening ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 26, beginning with a flag-raising at 10 a.m. and tours of the building between then and 2 p.m.
Voters agreed in a 164-65 decision at a special town meeting on Nov. 1, 2018, to purchase the building from LRGHealthcare. The $899,637 warrant article also included money to renovate the building to make it suitable for town offices.
Work did not begin until June of this year because bids for the work exceeded the approved budget, thus requiring some changes in the scope of the work. Most of the planned work remained in the revised project, with the savings coming from some lower-quality materials and the elimination of things such as a backup generator.
Going through the building ahead of the move on Oct. 15, Town Administrator Nik Coates pointed out some items that did not appear in the original bid specifications but were added using money from the general fund. Among them is a large-screen television that can be linked to town officials’ laptops to present documents and drawings for discussions at gatherings in the new meeting room.
Coates pointed out that the 1,000-plus-square-foot meeting room can accommodate 40-50 people and is well-lit with natural light from six windows, as well as LED lighting the town purchased through Eversource. The room also has video conferencing capabilities and built-in cameras for meeting videos.
Other technological features of the new building include free public wifi and cellular boosters.
Navigating The Building
The new town hall will have two entrances, with the door on the right accessing the main meeting room as well as the Town Clerk/Tax Collector’s Office. Off the lobby will be two service windows for paying bills and registering vehicles, as well as purchasing beach and solid waste stickers, or registering to vote.
“The lobby is also spacious and bright with plenty of seating, a water fountain — including bottle filler — a TV display for upcoming events and broadcasts of recent meetings, and an ADA-compliant restroom,” Coates said.
The meeting room originally was planned for the other end of the building, but the plans were flipped to take advantage of the slab foundation on the other end for records storage.
The left door now leads to the Land Use, Assessing, Permitting, and Human Services offices.
“With the changing world we live in, we have included the added security window and pass-through tray for paperwork,” Coates said. “If they are not there, you will find a courtesy phone that you can pick up and dial an extension to locate other staff who may be able to help you. If your business requires more than the basic question-and-answer or paperwork, they will come around and greet you through the secured door and bring you to the meeting room set up for your needs.”
That entrance also leads to the stairs to the second floor where Coates and his executive assistant, along with the Finance and Human Resources offices, are located. A courtesy phone at the top of the stairs will provide a way to contact the correct person for admittance to those offices and to the upstairs conference room.
“To ensure that you make the most of the time you spend,” Coates said, “I will now be blocking off time each day that will be set aside for meetings with townspeople. All you need to do is call [Administrative Assistant] Wendy Smith ahead of time and make an appointment and she can set you up with a time. The times I have set aside for appointments are 1-3 p.m. each day. If you would like to talk outside of those times, my availability cannot be guaranteed, but we will work to make accommodations.”
In addition to the offices and a small conference room, the upper floor includes an employee kitchen, a climate-controlled IT room, and storage areas. An unfinished area may serve as a business incubator space in the future.
When the town hall opens on Oct. 24, all of the current telephone numbers and email addresses will remain valid.
