Old Orchard Beach Town Offices

Town Office Complex in Old Orchard Beach, Maine
1998

Built in 1903, this aging structure faced being abandoned and possible demolition. We were retained to develop parallel studies of restoration versus a new structure along with cost comparisons for each. These were put to the voters and the resulting overwhelmingly positive vote to renovate began a major transformation. We took what had originally five floors and through a creative design process retained and completely updated the remaining three levels.

A complete underpinning of the foundation was necessary once we found there were never any footings, instead the wide stone foundation walls were built directly on the clay. All the dried and deteriorated shingles were removed from the exterior as well as all the rotted windows were removed and replaced. The bell tower was reinforced and restored and an original hose drying tower was transformed into an elevator shaft that today serves the beautiful third floor council chambers with its restored tin ceiling.

All this was accomplished with a very strict but modest budget and time line!