Lee Celebrates Kickoff of New Public Safety Building with Demo
LEE, Mass. — Town officials celebrated the start of a new public safety building on Tuesday by demolishing the Airoldi building and former Department of Public Works building.
"We're starting to take down the Airoldi building, which served as a municipal office building for the last few decades, we've had Tri-Town Health here some of our state representatives had have offices here, the DPW, we've had elections in this building and also was a former ambulance garage," Town Administrator Christopher Brittain said. "So, it served a number of purposes over the years."
The nearby Quonset hut that used to house the DPW is also expected to be taken down, clearing the property for a 37,661-square-foot building that will house the Police and Fire departments, and emergency medical services.
Brittain said this is a historic event for the town.
"This will kind of mark the first real work being done," he said. "We've been in the planning stages for almost two years between town meetings and bonds and things that we had to do and votes and now we are actually starting to see some things happening."
In 2023, voters endorsed nearly $37 million in borrowing, which included the purchase of property and relocating the DPW, during a special town meeting. The facility's cost is estimated to fall below $35 million and back in October the town received $1 million in federal funding toward construction.
Brittain said many factors went into the decision for a public safety building as the fire station building is too small and not up to today's standards.
"We're working right now out of three buildings, we're going to reduce that to two. The two up here on Main Street, the first one we occupied in 1911, it was built for two horse-drawn pieces of apparatus, we currently have four motorized pieces of apparatus in it and we're crammed in there like sardines," Fire Chief Ryan Brown said.
"The efficiency of operation is definitely impacted negatively. Our offices are in the building next door so we're not in the same building as our equipment, but we make it work."
The fire station, built in 1912, was found to be structurally unsound and inadequate to support modern-day equipment and the 1,600 square-foot police station falls significantly short of the 10,960 square feet of space that is required to accommodate the force.
The police building is located at 32 Main St., the same building as Town Hall.
"We're working out of such an antiquated facility that's on multiple floors from a best practice standpoint. It's very difficult to serve our community and it's just not efficient and there's liability issues there's safety issues and that's what we currently have," said Police Chief Craig DeSantis.
"It's hopefully going to accommodate future growth for these departments for 20 or more years into the future which is exciting," said Select Board member Sean Regnier. "This is an area of town that something needed to happen to improve it. It's right on the river, sort of off Main Street … and it's something that's going to be front and center in town to show off our public safety."
Regnier said the board has identified that the facilities were lacking a lot when he was first elected in 2020.
"So this is really kind of a kickoff of the process," he said.
State Rep. Leigh Davis attended the demolition/groundbreaking and spoke about the importance of public safety infrastructure and the bills she has filed in support.
"Investment in emergency medical services is needed more than ever … our fire, our police, really our first responders across the commonwealth and especially in rural communities. EMS providers are under strain, that's why I filed five bills this legislative session focused solely on strengthening emergency medical services statewide. This facility is part of that broader commitment ensuring that every community has access to timely high quality service and care," she said.
The complex is expected to open in March 2027. Officials said Tuesday's demolition is ahead of schedule.
Tags: groundbreaking, public safety buildings,
