At the end of the day, the voters of Westport should have the opportunity to have a real and substantive vote.”

Christopher Thrasher

It’s either knock it down or build it up. So we might as well build it up — it’s a tremendous asset.”

Cindy Brown

If Westport is ever to do anything with its former high school on Main Road, the town needs to come up with a clear strategic plan for the property, laying out how the building would be renovated for public use and what would be done with the 62 acres on which it sits.

Long Term Building Reuse Committee chairman Christopher Thrasher delivered that recommendation to the select board last Monday, telling members that without a concise vision, accurate cost breakdowns and an actable plan that voters can digest, the town risks doing what it has been doing for the past eight years — studying, talking and debating, while getting little of substance done:

“This is a very significant property,” Thrasher said. “It’s very crucial in my mind that a strategic plan really be developed one way or another. This past year the committee spent a very large amount of time going over previous discussions (and has gotten) stuck in the mud going over the options again and again.”

There has been no shortage of ideas on what to do with the old property presented over the years. At least four studies on the old property have been drafted or commissioned that cover what the building could fetch on the open market and how the town would fare if it were to demolish it, mothball it, sell it, convert it to affordable housing, renovate it for additional school space, or, the current preferred plan, renovate it for municipal usage — specifically, as a possible new home for the Council on Aging and to house the town offices currently housed in the Town Hall Annex, at a minimum.

No matter what happens, Thrasher said, “it’s going to cost money. There’s no way around it.”

While several of those ideas will likely not be cost-effective or would dispose of a property widely seen by residents as a crucial asset to Westport, the committee sees three options for the building: Demolish it at a cost of $2 to $8 million, mothball it, or re-use it for municipal office space, at a cost of anywhere from $10 to $35 million.

While it’s a big pill to swallow, Thrasher said the committee’s preferred option is to go with the municipal re-use plan.

If town officials ultimately focus on that option, he said the next step would be to develop a strategic plan that would encompass all the factors involved, including how much it would cost to renovate the building itself, but also how much it would cost to bring other buildings, such as the Annex, up to snuff.

With that done, “a ballot question could possibly be created.”

“At the end of the day, the voters of Westport should have the opportunity to have a real and substantive vote. Not just a vote of ‘What would you like to do in a perfect world?’, but an up or down vote,” Thrasher said.

All acknowledged last week that selling such a plan will be a tough row to hoe in Westport, given the town’s finances and the failure of recent debt exclusion and override votes on other matters that were summarily defeated at the polls.

While the preferred plan would more than likely require another debt exclusion, several officials said that moving the Annex and COA services to the school and selling the buildings could help ease some of the sticker shock.

Thrasher predicted that if the town cuts through all the noise, gets to the heart of the matter and presents a clear plan of what officials think would be the best and most cost-effective use, and why, the project has a chance of moving forward. Otherwise, building reuse committee member Cindy Brown added, the town could easily continue to spin its wheels.

“If you don’t have an end game, you’re sinking money into it. It’s either knock it down or build it up. So we might as well build it up — it’s a tremendous asset.”