The town offices in Jaffrey are expected to move into their new home in three months, with a bid for interior and entrance improvements to the former TD Bank on Main Street expected to start this month.

The town has been seeking a permanent home for its town offices since 1995, when it moved into its current location on Goodnow Street, which was intended to be a short-term solution.

On Friday, potential bidders for the improvement work conducted a walk-through of the former bank. The town purchased the building in February, after voters approved using $1.2 million in unexpended fund balance to purchase the building for new town offices in November. The town is bidding a project to upgrade the entrances to the building and add separating walls to create distinct office space for its departments.

The town anticipates opening bids for the work on May 16, with work starting as soon as possible afterwards.

“Our goal is July,” said Town Manager Jon Frederick. “I’m hopeful. We put in the bid that our desire was to have construction complete by the end of July.”

The scope of work includes replacing the Main Street entrance with a Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant door, building a partition wall within the lobby space, replacing tile and carpet as needed, installing glass panels from the top of the existing customer counters to create office space for the clerk’s and tax collector’s offices, removing some countertops and adding new electrical outlets.

The price of the renovations was not included in the Town Meeting request. Instead, at that time, the town indicated it planned to use funds set aside over the course of multiple years into a reserve fund for the purchase or building of a new town office. Frederick said that is still the plan, with the town office reserve currently having about $330,000. He said while the town expects the scope of work to fall within that budget, the construction field is currently unpredictable, and the town won’t know for sure until bids are opened on May 16.

“We have a ballpark figure, but you never know until you open them on the price,” Frederick said. 

He said in the event all bids are over the amount the town has in its capital reserve, the Select Board will have to make a decision on next steps. He said the town does have an additional capital reserve fund set aside for general municipal building maintenance, which could also be tapped, or the scope of work could be reduced.

As for the town’s current town office building on Goodnow Street, Frederick said the Select Board had a brief discussion about the future of the building during a goal-setting session, and has decided to retain ownership of it, but has not discussed specific plans for its use.

“We’ve had interest from other entities about leasing space from us, and other entities that are part of the town, like the Historical Society, have shown interest, but there’s nothing concrete,” Frederick said. “Our immediate focus is on getting moved over to the new building, and once that’s accomplished, we’ll begin looking at what we can do.”

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.