With assessment of shuttered New London school set to start, city looks for new polling place

New London ― Last week's election was likely the last in which the city's oldest school building will be used as a regular polling place for District 2 voters.The city, though, has not yet identified a permanent replacement.The Harbor Elementary School at 432 Montauk Ave. was shuttered in June 2023 due to infrastructure concerns, but election officials opted to continue using the 117-year-old building as a polling site so as not to confuse voters ahead of last week's presidential election.Democratic Registrar of Voters Rich Martin on Monday said he and his Republican counterpart, Rob Pero, have begun discussing where the approximately 6,000 registered voters in District 2 will cast their ballots going forward."It's tricky because there's no real ideal site for a new polling place," he said. "We've discussed options in Shaws Cove and, ideally, we'd want a city building."Martin said there are several prerequisites for a polling place, including handicap accessibility, adequate parking and enough space to properly set up equipment and welcome voters."We could rent a space for elections, and other cities have used churches and synagogues for voting, but a city building would be the best option," he said. "Our hope would be to find a new place far enough ahead of time before the next election to ensure voters are aware of the change."The future of the school building, along with its two 1990s-era annexes and the 3-acre property they sit on, is still up in the air.The Board of Education in February released the building back to the city. In July, the City Council approved using $63,700 in federal COVID-19 American Rescue Plan Act monies for a Phase I environmental assessment of the property and its buildings.Felix Reyes, the city's director of planning and economic development, said an environmental assessment team is scheduled to begin examining the property in January for hazardous materials.That assessment was initially slated to begin over the summer but needed to be postponed to allow scheduled recreational programming in the school's gym to continue through the end of the year."The kind of assessment work is extremely complicated and includes drilling and coring – not the kind of work we want to do with people using the buildings," Reyes said.Department of Recreation Director Joshua Posey said Monday the school's gym hosts daily pickleball games, as well as gymnastic, yoga and other classes.In addition to the main assessment work, GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc. will check the main building's soil for lead, and recreation areas for the presence of pesticides and other contaminants.A pre-demolition survey of the school will check for asbestos, lead, mercury and refrigerants.Reyes said the assessment results will give the city a clear idea of the condition of the property before a decision is made about how best to market the site to potential developers. He noted the city is currently responsible for the upkeep of the property and utility costs."We've had interest from developers, and at some point, the city will need to make a decision on whether we keep it, demolish it or sell it," he said. "It's no surprise there's challenges with that building, but it's nothing that can't be overcome."Reyes noted other historic vacant city properties, like the contaminated former Garfield Mills site, are in the process of being successfully transformed by developers into apartment spaces."But we'll be leaning on the market to see what we can or can't do at Harbor," Reyes said. "It's going to be entirely an economic decision and one that doesn't leave the city at risk." j.penney@theday.com