Nantucket presents joint DPW campus and Nantucket Hunting Association shooting and archery range at Shad Bush Road

Town of Nantucket officials on Monday laid out a joint proposal to build a new Department of Public Works campus and an underground shooting and archery range for the Nantucket Hunting Association on a 27‑acre town‑owned parcel at 1 Shad Bush Road.

The project pairs a 7.9‑acre DPW campus with a 1.1‑acre shooting and archery facility and, because the parcel is mapped as priority habitat, requires a Natural Heritage mitigation plan that would leave 18 acres under permanent conservation restriction and limit development to about 9 acres, officials said.

The proposal matters to residents because the current DPW facilities at 188 Madaket Road are aging, scattered across eight small structures and about 21,000 square feet of space, and town staff say those conditions create safety and operational problems. At the same time, the hunting association said a local, formal range would restore decades of training, law‑enforcement qualification space and youth education that currently require travel off‑island.

“There's certainly not a lot that we don't do,” Drew Padnode, director of public works for the Town of Nantucket, said while outlining the department's responsibilities and the condition of current facilities. Padnode said an OSHA consultation found the existing site lacks required clearances, appropriate storage and other code‑related features that the new campus would correct.

Padnode described the proposed DPW campus as a compact, single‑campus replacement of the current scattered buildings. Plans shown to the public included a central fleet garage with indoor vehicle storage, heated wash bay, purpose‑built workspaces and mezzanine storage; a larger salt shed located near the entrance; a fuel island; administrative…