Town may at last have a home of its own by spring

It has been 25 years in the making with plenty of bumps in the road, but the Town of Grafton is finally looking at moving into its new Town Hall in spring, Town Chairman Lester Bartel said.

The former Motorsport Composites building at the intersection of Falls and Port Washington roads is gaining a vestibule and undergoing extensive interior renovation to be equipped for its role as Town Hall, Bartel said.

In June, the town contracted with Koenig Construction Co. to complete the work that Bartel estimates will end up costing $725,000.

Bartel said the town had saved for a new Town Hall for several years and used a portion of its American Rescue Plan Act funds to buy the Falls Road property for $625,000 in 2023.

“By the time we will be done, we will be $1.2 million or $1.3 million in,” he said.

The former Motorsport building, Bartel said, “wasn’t our first choice or our second choice but our third choice.”

Town officials first hoped to buy the building that houses the Canine Enrichment Center at the intersection of Grafton Avenue and Arrowhead Road, Bartel said, but it wasn’t for sale.

In 2020, town officials purchased 3.39 acres on Highway W for a new Town Hall. Cost estimates for construction were between about $1.1 million to $1.3 million, according to press reports.

However, Bartel said, as those estimates grew to more than $2 million, the town divided the property into three pieces and put them on the market.

Two of those three have sold, he said.

The current Town Hall is in the heart of the Village of Grafton, which partially motivated the move, Bartel said.

“(Having a town hall in the town) is a preference if you can do it,” he said.

The current hall was originally a movie theater, Bartel said, then became the Village Hall, and at different times it was the village’s police station and library.

The biggest issue with the current location is that the town doesn’t own its hall, Bartel said.

“We were year-to-year and now are month-to-month renters,” he said. “If something suddenly changed at that location, like if it sold, we’d be in a tough spot.”

Bartel said he expects the remodel to be complete this winter, allowing for a move before the April election next year.

Until October, the town was renting a portion of the new town hall building to Michaels Construction, which was working on the I-43 construction project.