No Developments On Chamber Information Building

ORLEANS – Back in November, the town put out feelers for businesses or community organizations that might have interest in assuming control of the vacated visitor information building on Eldredge Park Way.

Nine months later, town officials are still waiting.

The Orleans Chamber of Commerce, when it was the board of trades, first began operating out of the building in 1979. The building is located next to the Eversource substation on land owned by the utility, and the chamber pays taxes annually to Eversource on the building. The town, meanwhile, has a lease with Eversource to use the land.

The information building for years served as a stop for visitors to learn more about the town and get recommendations on restaurants and local events and attractions. But the dilapidated state of the aging building led the chamber to move information operations out of the building last summer and over to its headquarters at 44 Main St.

But while the town has tried to solicit interest from other entities to take over and even potentially relocate the building, Town Manager Kim Newman last week said there’s been little progress.

“Every couple of months or so, we have another person sort of circle in and say ‘Oh, there’s someone who might be interested in that for…whatever,’” she said. “And it doesn’t really materialize.”

Newman said the chamber could give the building over to the town, in which case the town would assume responsibility for it. While the idea was floated last fall of possibly using the building for public safety training, she said the building is too small to accommodate any municipal use.

But while momentum has stalled on figuring out a plan for the building, Newman said she’s still holding out hope that someone will step up to assume control of the property. Demolishing the building would be “incredibly wasteful,” she said.

“The simplest thing is it’s a usable structure. Does anyone want it?” she said.

But even if someone steps up to assume occupancy of the building, there are many pieces that will need to fall into place to allow that to happen. Town Counsel Michael Ford told the select board in November that the town needs to give Eversource a year’s notice if it plans to terminate its lease with the utility. The town also would have to pay to restore the property back to its original condition, he said.

“There’s a lease agreement, there’s a whole bunch of pieces involved,” Newman said. “But the reality of the situation is if we’re going to be disposing of the building…then we have to figure out when we would do that and what the actual cost would be.”

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com