Select Board Split on Old Town Hall

The Seekonk Select Board disagreed on what to do with the property known as the Old Town Hall at 624 Taunton Avenue. The structure, the former site of the Seekonk Police Department headquarters, has sat unoccupied for several years. Voters at last November’s Town Meeting had rejected a warrant article which authorized the Board to sell the property.

“The building is worth absolutely nothing,” Board chair Michelle Hines said at the February 4 meeting. “It can’t be used for anything. As far as I’m concerned, a bulldozer is the only way to take care of that building.”

“Let’s keep it,” said member Michael Healy. “There are multiple uses for it.”

Board member Pam Pozzi, noting the building’s “historical significance,” suggested using it as a cultural center. Pozzi was dismayed that the condition of the building had been allowed to deteriorate. “We don’t maintain buildings the way we should maintain them,” Pozzi said.

Town Administrator Shawn Cadime said there had been discussions about using the building as a temporary library while the Seekonk Public Library undergoes renovations. A new roof was installed in 2015 and is still usable, Cadime noted.

The property, constructed in 1897, had been sold to the Seaconke Wampanoags for $55 in 2014. The tribe had intended to convert the building into a cultural and meeting center. Those plans fell through and now the town owns the building again.

At an October 2022 meeting with the Old Town Hall Building Committee, the Board of Selectmen approved a feasibility study for the building. At the time, Town Administrator Shawn Cadime said the study would present viable options of what could be done with the building and at that point, decide how the Town should move forward with it.

In 2018, Selectmen designated the task of determining the building’s value to members of the town’s Historical commission and the Community Preservation Committee.

The CPC noted when the building opened in 1898, it had served as a way of bringing the community together, since at the time, the Town of Seekonk did not have a Town Center. After the Committee held several meetings and did a walk-through of the building, they proposed preserving the building to utilize it in a multifaceted way.

A total of $100,000 has already been spent from the town’s community preservation fund in order to prepare the building for the historic register.