MONTAGUE — Selectmen unanimously approved allowing the town manager to use up to $3,000 to hire a contractor/engineer who would be tasked to determine just how much it would cost to replace the upper roof of the Shea Theater building.
This figure for the work, said Town Administrator Steve Ellis would give the town a point of comparison for repairs moving forward.
The money for this “quote” will come from the $50,000 approved by residents at the Annual Town Meeting for repairs to the Shea Theater roof, which was originally needed for a resealing project.
Last year, new HVAC ducting was installed and the lower roof was resealed, using money from a state green communities grant.
Ellis said there are other minor repairs necessary that include fastening part of the upper roof, after bowing occurred last year, and new fixtures to be placed under the HVAC and new wrapping around the various edges around roof lines.
When a company came to assess the work needed to get a warranty, its representative said they could not accurately access the roof until the ballasted top layer, a top coat made of gravel, was removed, Ellis said.
One of the goals of the project was to get a warranty-able roof, which would be for about 10 years, but Ellis said the town did not feel comfortable proceeding with removal of all the ballast without a plan in place.
“We no longer felt comfortable that we could proceed with a warranty and get the project done for $50,000,” Ellis said, and town officials were worried “that when we got all the ballast off the roof, at which point you are committed to doing something immediately, they might tell us that it’s not warrantable without substantial additional work.”
Ellis met with the Capital Improvement Committee and a representative from the Energy Committee, which proposed using a small portion of the funds allocated from the resealing project to acquire professional services to determine the next steps of the project.
“And a big part of this is going to be paying a qualified engineer and roofing company to develop a reliable quote as a basis for comparison for replacement of the roof altogether,” Ellis said. “If that comes in and it’s a half million to get it done, then we’ll be comparing doing something for $50,000 with no warranty — but that makes it much easier to repair any future leaks because the ballast would be gone — to the alternative of, at some price of doing the roof in its entirety to that total cost. It would be very informative to what decision as to which way to approach the project.”
The next steps would be getting a quote and the Capital Improvement Committee would make a recommendation to the Selectboard and Finance Committee. Any repairs would not be made until the spring of next year, according to Ellis. He said there have been no leaks reported since the repairs were made last year.
“All that matters that to me is that we do this in a fashion that is responsible and the best possible use of funds,” Ellis said.