Town Hall set to relocate
The former Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses on Route 22 in North East is set to become the new site of the North East Town Hall. 
Photo by John Coston

Town Hall set to relocate

MILLERTON —  After 49 years in its current location at 19 N. Maple Ave., the North East Town Hall is set to move across town.

The new location of the Town Hall will be the former Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses at 5603 Route 22, which the town has agreed to purchase for $430,000.

Built in 1990, the building is “in superb shape” according to Town Supervisor Chris Kennan. The entire building is on one single floor, making it accessible and ADA-compliant, which the current Town Hall, with its steep staircase and narrow hallways, is not.

The building comprises 4,500 square feet of space (as opposed to the 2,700 square feet of the current Town Hall), and a large open space will be mostly preserved to encompass a meeting room that can hold approximately 50 people (the Town Hall’s meeting room holds 15).

In Kennan’s view, the only negative to the building is that it’s not in the Village, though “this doesn’t preclude us from having a Town Hall in the Village some day down the road.”

The building will need some modifications before the town can formally move in — part of the large meeting space will be turned into offices and the building will need to be wired for telephone and internet — and the town has budgeted $150,000 for these improvements.

Built around 1910, the former two-story home that houses the current Town Hall was purchased for use by the Town in 1974. The town will be looking to sell the building and its lot, as well as the lot adjacent to it that the town owns in order to put them back on the tax rolls. Kennan stressed that, since the former Kingdom Hall is currently a religious building, it is tax-exempt and will not be taken off the tax rolls in being purchased by the town since it is not on the tax rolls to begin with.

The Town Board must approve the contract to purchase before the sale can be finalized, and Kennan will bring the contract before the Board at its Thursday, March 9, meeting.

“My goal is to be in the new building by the end of the year, and I think we can,” said Kennan.

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