Chapin looks at eco-friendly quarters

By TIM FLACH - tflach@thestate.com

Chapin’s new Town Hall may go green.

Town officials are looking at using solar lighting, collecting rain for landscape irrigation and other steps to save energy in building new quarters.

“We’ll give some consideration to designing it ‘green,’” Mayor Stan Shealy said.

Building that way may cost up to 10 percent more but lower utility bills will more than make up for it, he said.

The new office will be on 25 acres adjoining the local library and two blocks northwest of the current Town Hall at 103 Columbia Ave.

That site is big enough to add a town park that would hosts festivals and community gatherings.

The energy-savings features of the new facility would be a model for other communities, town clerk Adrienne Thompson said.

She envisions it would be as large as 8,000 square feet, nearly triple current space shared by town staff.

Thompson hopes it could be completed by late 2009 at a cost of nearly $3 million.

Builders would use recycled materials as another conservation step.

The facility would be situated to save most trees on the site.

And it would be moved away from the railroad tracks, reducing noise disruption at town meetings.

Reach Flach at (803) 771-8483.