Open for a sneak peek
Building Committee, media get tour of under construction public safety building
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

Ashburnham Police Chief Loring Barrett describes the future booking area for the police side of the building. This area will allow for much greater safety for the Ashburnham Police Officers when interviewing a prisoner. It will also allow for prisoners to be put in holding cells, which is not currently available to the Ashburnham Police Station.

Construction on the Public Safety Building is progressing on scheduled in Ashburnham and the project is about 65 percent completed, according to Police Chief Loring Barrett.

Everyone seems to agree that the project is on schedule for completion in August.

"Our time delays are pretty much worked out now," said Jim Cervi, the construction company's project superintendent.

The members of the Building Committee and the media had their first look inside the building on Tuesday. The committee, which has had representatives (Barrett and Selectman Chris Gagnon) touring the building weekly with the project manager and construction supervisors, appeared pleased with the way work was progressing.

Barrett describes the lobby area of the new Public Safety Building. He stands in front of what will be the main entrance for the public, which will have access windows to the dispatchers.

The rough work for all of the plumbing, heating and ventilation system and electricity is nearly completed. He had said that bases for the building's electronic system are set up.

Barrett explained that most of the public areas of the buildings are set up to be covered by cameras and key locked doors to add to the security for the police officers and the firefighters.

He said in the cell and booking areas, the only area that does not have all of the walls poured, will all be camera monitored, and that feed will be fed to specific computers in the building.

"This is a state of the art building," Cervi said.

The prison cell doors arrived on Tuesday, so the work in that area will be completed in the next week or two.

The steal beams are in to mark where the walls are going to be to separate offices and other rooms. Cervi said by the end of the month installation should be completed and the sheetrock walls should be completed for the walls.

Members of the Ashburnham Public Safety Building Committee stand in the fire department's truck bays during a tour of the new Public Safety Building on Tuesday to view the progress of the project.

He said that they needed the windows that were delivered in the middle of this week to proceed with the interior walls so that they can guarantee that the building is tight before doing the interior wall work.

"Those windows are key," he said. "We can guarantee there is no water, moisture, issues."

"We're just waiting for the weather to break to finish up the outside," Cervi said.

He said the exterior, other than the windows, are not delaying any of the interior work of the project.

The building is set up to have a separate Fire Department and Police Department with some public areas connecting the two.

"Both areas of these building can be expanded on," Barrett said. "It was designed with that purpose."

Ashburnham Public Safety Building Project Superintendent Jim Cervi talks about the progress of the building and how things will progress in the project. JOURNAL PHOTOS/JEFFREY W. BOUDREAU