MONTPELIER, Vt. -
For more than a year the Waterbury office complex has been left unused after it was flooded by Tropical Storm Irene.
Now officials are moving closer to a rebuilding plan.
It's a hard concept to believe but officials at the Department of Buildings and General Services told the state House and Senate members that they can actually provide more office space for less money.
"This is a proposal that I'm excited about and I usually don't get excited about buildings," Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services Michael Obuchowski said.
Officials at the Department of Buildings and General Services and Agency of Human Services were happy about updates on the project as well as sharing them with the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions.
"We're very much looking forward to going back to Waterbury," Secretary of the Agency of Human Services Doug Racine said.
The plan is to build some new buildings instead of renovating the ones with severe flooding damage.
They also hope to have some employees work from home, telecommuting. Than plan also calls for an increase in the formerly proposed 800 employees at the complex to nearly 992.
All this and, according to state officials, save more money than the last proposal over the next few decades.
"Over 30 years you're getting more for your money," Jesse Beck of the architect firm that's designing the project said.
The drop in cost over the next 30 years is because the state will let go of two of its buildings out of its hands and allow them to be used by other entities. The Weeks building and the Hanks building.
One state representative is worried that the two buildings will sit empty too long while they look for someone to fill them making it expensive to maintain them. The planners of the project say that even if the buildings sit unused for an extended period of time it's a financially solid plan. Also the complex will absorb state employees from leased offices that they'll no longer have to pay for.
But the biggest question still remains funding for the project with the amount of FEMA funding yet to be determined.
