COLRAIN — When Tropical Storm Irene hit in 2011, the town’s old highway garage — built from what was the former town office — took in about four feet of floodwater, ruining the boiler and other equipment in the front office and basement.
But the new $2 million highway garage has metal flood-doors and other design features intended to minimize any flood damage in future years.
According to Town Coordinator Kevin Fox, the money to build the new garage came from a $1,091,000 Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Fund, $420,000 of the town’s Chapter 90 road money and about $480,000 from the town’s Stabilization and “Free cash” reserve funds.
Construction began on the 6,000 square-foot garage in April 2017, with the work completed this spring. “All that’s left is the paving out front, including the sidewalk,” says Highway Superintendent Scott Sullivan.
The new garage has a state-of-the-art wash bay, in which even the town’s fire trucks can be washed from top-to-bottom. And the wash bay can capture and recycle the water. There are ADA-compliant accessible bathrooms, and a multifunctional meeting room with air-conditioning and a kitchen.
“Some of the town boards are already meeting here,” said Fox.
The building’s two furnaces and air-handling system and compressor are no longer in the basement; they are now located on the second floor, along with the highway superintendent’s office. On the lowest floor is a metal, sliding flood door that can be put into place, to stop flood waters from flooding the rest of the building.
To be eligible for the disaster-recovery grant, the new garage had to be built in the same spot as the old one, Fox explained. “If we could have put it somewhere else, or made it bigger, we would have,” he said.
The old garage was housed in what was originally a fire station that was attached to a former one-room schoolhouse, which became the old town office. When the current town office was built, the former one became the office for the highway garage.
To build the new garage, the town had to get the Massachusetts Historic Commission’s permission to demolish the old section, because it lies in a designated historic district. Fox said the Commission gave permission for that demolition, provided the town gave them the right to review the final garage design. To ensure the new garage was in keeping with the historic buildings in the old town center, the building siding was selected to resemble that of surrounding buildings, and the soft gray and blue colors were approved by the Massachusetts Historic Commission.
The garage houses six town trucks.
Fox noted that Hartnett Plumbing has recently renovated its building next door to the Highway Garage, and that future improvements, to be paid for with Transportation Improvement Program grants are planned for the Greenfield, Main, and Jacksonville roads intersection in two more years. “This whole section is going to look really nice,” he said.