RUMFORD — The Select Board plans to announce Thursday the critical need to construct an office and garage for the Parks and Recreation Department on Hosmer Lane.

The meeting will get underway at 6 p.m. in the Rumford Falls Auditorium in the Municipal Building.

The flood of December 2023 caused an estimated $2 million damage to the department office, equipment and garage at 15 Lincoln Ave.

Town Manager George O’Keefe said recently that officials will have an agenda item Thursday to approve a proposed warrant for a special town meeting, likely in 10 days.

Woodhull of Portland, which provides architectural design and build services, will be tasked with having bid packets ready for a 60- by 100-foot prefabricated metal garage as soon as legally possible, O’Keefe said.

This is something that would normally be spread out over 90 days, but O’Keefe said he’s looking to shorten that process to about six weeks. “Right now, I do not have a suitable garage facility for the Parks and Recreation Department. Period.”

He said the process is contingent upon funds.

As recently as six months ago, O’Keefe said they had bids of $3 million for a new building, but after three workshops by the Select Board and recreation and other officials, that figure has come way down.

O’Keefe said the latest project estimate was $1.08 million and he expects another reduction because there were components of the HVAC system that they didn’t need. “We did not want them to air condition the garage.”

He said cash on hand it own accounts is about $879,000, “but only about $604,000 can be reappropriated by the town to this project, if they wish to do so. All of that is sitting in the Parks Department capital fund to support its programs and facilities. I am recommending that people of the town consider using parks’ capital funding into a parks’ building.”

Also damaged in the flood of December 2023 was the Hosmer skating rink area.

A couple months earlier, Parks and Recreation officials were told they would be awarded a $250,000 matching grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to put a canopy over the hockey rink.

Parks Superintendent Marcus Palmer said that because of the garage project, the canopy project should be delayed, but the rink needs new boards around it and repairs to the lighting to make it suitable for use.

An effort is underway to see if the $250,000 matching grant from the Land and Water Conservation can be repurposed for the garage project.

O’Keefe said voters approved $275,000 for the Hosmer Lane project at a special town meeting Dec. 5, 2024. If they’re able to use those matching funds for the garage as well, it will go a long way to funding this project.

Rumford is also waiting for $111,280 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for flood disaster relief — a reimbursement from a combination of state and federal agencies. That money would go back into the parks’ capital fund.

O’Keefe said another element in the town’s favor is the baseball grandstand repair project “looks much smaller than anything we had envisioned. There’s some repairs that need to be done, but it’s not something we need to address this year.”

O’Keefe commended board Chairman Chris Brennick for his leadership in “developing this particular formula and approach in this document and taking us where we need to go. Because as town manager, it’s not really my place to sit up and suggest and encourage and propose that we’re going to take an expansive view of how we’re going to reappropriate and reallocate funds. That’s something I can do really only in collaboration with the Select Board.”

As it stands, he said he’s very comfortable in saying that the Parks and Recreation project is very doable. It’s a simple approach to construction because “you’re doing a prefab building on slab. I’m sure there will be challenges with contractors and construction because they’re always are. But this is not a complicated approach.”

O’Keefe said the site is relatively flat, with road access from both sides and not a lot of heavy traffic on either side of it. “We’re trying to build it once and build it right, and not have to do this again in a few years. It would be really nice if we could finish this by December.