The Town of Middleburgh has a buyer on its old Town Hall.
At a special meeting on April 28, the town accepted an offer of $299,000 on the 143 Railroad Avenue building from Ezequiel Rocha.
Councilman Wes Laraway said Mr. Rocha plans to turn it into apartments; a closing has been tentatively set for the first of June.
The building was listed with Ruby Torres/Keller Williams for $299,000 and sold in just a few weeks.
“It all came together pretty quickly,” Mr. Laraway said.
“It’s going to be nice to see it back on the tax rolls. That building was good to us.”
The new owner has agreed to let the town remove the barn quilt of the M&S Railroad and put it on the Historical Society’s rehabbed depot across the street.
It was the Historical Society that first erected the quilt, Mr. Laraway said.
Now that it’s moved all of its offices into the Community Center, the town no longer needs the space.
But the Community Center, funded by the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery after Irene, also has its own problems with the heating and electrical systems.
Former Councilman Steve Hendrickson had acted as project manager for the town, but Highway Superintendent Steve Kowalski argued it’s time to start let him manage the building.
There are too many people in the “emergency call” chain, he said; a call about a propane leak at the site went through three people before it got to him—and he’s the one who had to go out and dig up the line by hand.
In the end?
The leak was at the tank regulator, not under 12 inches of dirt, fill, and rocks.
Much of the Community Center’s systems, including security cameras, are password-protected on a laptop.
Supervisor John Youmans and councilmen agreed to work on transferring the laptop and the building’s responsibility to Mr. Kowalski.