Pawtucket committee votes to solicit second cost estimates on City Hall renovation, 7-0

Pawtucket’s Ad Hoc City Council Building Review Committee voted 7-0 on Aug. 13 to solicit second cost estimates from six vendors on options for Pawtucket City Hall, including full renovation, removing the tower, or demolition, and to return to the committee with those bids for review.

The vote comes after two members of the public urged the committee to prioritize preserving the downtown landmark. Michael Pompeli told the committee that the city has published two headline figures—"$92,300,000 for a complete renovation of City Hall, and $10,100,000 to demolish the building"—and asked the committee to clarify what each figure does and does not include. "If we, if we demolish or sell City Hall, the alternative would have to be a new building for this, which is clearly not a state of the art facility, and it's removed from our city's downtown," Pompeli said. Amanda Fungo echoed that appeal, saying: "we should be looking for ways to ... justify keeping city hall rather than looking for ways to justify tearing it down," and urged committee members to consider the building's historic role in the downtown corridor.

Committee discussion focused on the process for getting a second, independent estimate. Chris Crowley…