BUCKLAND — Following a request for proposals, the Selectboard has chosen Jay Heilman and Jake Orzechowski of JPH Building, a custom residential home design/contracting firm, to buy the former police station on Conway Street.

“We’re very excited in this new endeavor for us,” Orzechowski said after the May 28 Selectboard meeting. “We’re super excited for the opportunity and appreciate everybody who had input in the decision. And we’re looking forward to giving the police station new life.”

Three entities submitted proposals for the building: Great River Hydro, the Community Health Center of Franklin County and JPH Building.

Selectboard member Joan Livingston voted to award the bid to the health center. Chair Clint Phillips and Vice Chair Larry Wells both voted for JPH Building.

Each of the three read a statement before voting. Public comment was not invited on May 28 as there had been several prior public meetings as well as input from a committee studying the issue.

While Livingston advocated for the health center’s proposal to expand services to West County with a satellite office, she noted that choice “would not be a fast solution,” given that the center couldn’t close on the property until Nov. 1 and then it would have to secure grant funding to renovate the building.

The Community Health Center of Franklin County bid the minimum $325,000 and, as a nonprofit, noted it would not pay taxes nor offer to make payments in lieu of taxes.

Meanwhile, JPH Building bid $350,000 with a quick closing date and will pay property taxes. JPH Building already has a presence in town at the old fire station on William Street, which it bought in 2003.

The renovation plan for the former police station is to split the building vertically, said Heilman, so that half will be production and design offices and the other side will house eight professional offices with a shared conference room.

Heilman said he had offered to rent half the building — about 2,800 square feet — to the health center, but CEO Allison van der Velden said that would not be sufficient space. He said the offer still stands.

“We offered the Community Health Center the opportunity to still locate there, but for multiple reasons they don’t seem interested,” Heilman said. “We wish everybody could get the part that they wanted out of it, but we are very happy to be awarded the building.”

Reasons behind the votes

Saying her decision came down to “which proposal would be the most beneficial to Buckland,” and recognizing that “Buckland needs all the income it can get,” Livingston nonetheless said selling to the nonprofit health center would not, in this case, be taking a property off the tax rolls as it hasn’t been on the tax rolls since 2003. That’s when the town bought the property from then TransCanada, forerunner of Great River Hydro.

She said it has been estimated the town would receive about $7,400 in property taxes annually in its current condition and that might rise to $10,500 or more annually after it has been renovated.

In terms of new growth, she said the sale of the police station to a tax-paying business would add $421,400 in the first year, and perhaps an additional $200,000 in the next.

Because selling to the health center wouldn’t change the tax status of the building and the fact that the center “would offer direct services to the residents of Buckland, as well as our neighboring communities,” Livingston cast her vote for the health center.

Wells prefaced his remarks by saying “any decision made by the Selectboard will make some people a little bit happy, and other people a little bit not happy. Both proposals offer something needed by the citizens of Buckland.”

Wells said he was disappointed that his “win-win” solution of offering the health center space in the building didn’t work, but that putting the building back on the tax rolls helped sway his vote.

“And why didn’t they prepare a higher offer in lieu of not paying taxes, keeping in mind the needs of the town?” Wells asked of the health center.

Phillips, who said he “never imagined selling a piece of property would be the hardest challenge” he would face, mentioned abundant meetings and talks with residents with opinions to express.

“It seemed many people in town had some interest in how the building would end up,” he said, adding he felt “torn.”

In the end, Phillips said, he based his decision on the “financial resiliency of this community” and supported awarding the bid to JPH Building.

The next step is to draft a purchase and sale agreement. That could be accomplished in about a month, according to Town Administrator Heather Butler. She said she hopes to be able to include the sale in the town’s fiscal year 2025 new growth statistics.

Heilman said the renovation will be fully cosmetic to the interior and that the exterior will stay as is.

“We probably will get a pretty hefty investment into the property,” he said.