ORANGE — The Selectboard voted at its most recent meeting to authorize the town’s chief procurement officer to spend up to $20,000 in emergency funds to address the Orange Armory’s persistently flooded basement.
Matthew Fortier, who is also the town administrator, explained that solutions include an adequate submersible pump to combat water infiltration and ensuring the discharge is trenched away from the structure at 135 East Main St.
“That’s something that we could do, to get that water back out of the building, to protect the asset,” he said at the July 1 meeting.
It took three days to pump out roughly 5 feet of water from the building’s basement a couple weeks ago, and Henry Oertel, the local man who volunteers to watch over the vacant structure, told Selectboard members he wanted them to decide what to do with it.
“The electrical [system] is all shot, OK? It’s all corroded. It’s sat there for five years in a moisture environment, and it finally just quit,” he said, noting that an electrician told him it would cost “big bucks” to replace all the electrical panels. “The armory right now, it’s done. There’s no electrical. And, of course, the moisture has taken over.”
Oertel previously said the basement floor is perpetually slippery due to water damage and mold, and he has arranged blocks to walk on because he has “taken a few slips and slides and destroyed [his] clothes.”
Fortier mentioned the armory was built near a pond, and he was told the water could have touched wires and caused an electrical fire if it had risen another foot. He said he made the executive decision to contact Steve Canning, the town’s wiring inspector, to have him get the building’s electrical service shut off.
“Because, obviously, we don’t want a building burning down on that side of town or in general,” he said. “And we do know there’s asbestos in the building.”
The Orange Armory has fallen into disrepair. The Selectboard voted in October 2021 to close it and relocate the municipal offices that were based there. The Selectboard then voted in April 2024 to designate the armory as surplus property, the first step for the town in ridding itself of the three-story structure built in 1913.
According to Preservation Massachusetts Inc., a statewide historic preservation education and advocacy organization, the Orange Armory was named one of Massachusetts’ Most Endangered Historic Resources. The building was dedicated as a home for Company E, 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, which served in the Spanish-American War and World War I. Ownership of the building was transferred to the town in 1975.
Fortier said at the July 1 meeting that the materials in the Orange Armory’s upper floors are mostly town inventory, such as office equipment. He mentioned these objects can be saved, declared surplus and sold, or repurposed. He explained that the town is legally required to notify all departments of unused materials before putting them up for auction.
Fortier suggested using municibid.com, an online auction site for government surplus, as this would attract more potential buyers.
