| SEPTEMBER 20, 2011 -- The town council has voted to purchase the former Connecticut Valley Oil property, which will be used as a parking lot by the Hazardville Institute.
The council approved the purchase unanimously Monday night. It has set aside approximately $150,000 for the transaction and associated costs.
The Hazardville Institute, built as a community hall in 1869 on land donated by Col. Augustus Hazard, has been a theater, a dance hall, a library, a polling place, a home for Enfield Grange and a basketball court.
After falling into disrepair, the building has undergone extensive restoration in the past few years and will house community meeting space and a small museum on the history of the town's Hazardville section and the Hazard Powder Co., according to Bill Lee, a council member and also a member of the Hazardville Institute Conservancy Society.
The town has also applied for grants to bring the consolidated probate court to the building, but if the grant is not received, it may rent out part of the second floor to a private group to pay for the building's upkeep, he said.
Conservancy Society President Gretchen Pfeifer-Hall said that securing parking for the building was "a critical component to completing the restoration of the institute."
"All the pieces of this puzzle are finally coming together," she said.
Assistant Manager Dan Vindigni said that the town will also need to spend $12,000 to $15,000 to clean up contamination from an old oil tank.
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