After standing in the heart of West Tisbury for 150 years, the Grange Hall is due for major structural renovations, said Vineyard Preservation Trust officials at a town historic district commission meeting this Monday.

The building, owned by the Trust, needs new roofing, insulation, a foundation, a basement, a new heating, ventilation and cooling system and a revamped kitchen, said Trust executive director Nevette Previd, with the project now in its second year of planning. An early estimate puts total projected costs for the project at around $3 million, not including the kitchen or the $235,000 in West Tisbury Community Preservation Act funds already contributed to replace the roof. 

If all goes according to plan, Ms. Previd said, work on the project could begin in 2024. 

“It’s a very big project. And there’s a lot of different components,” she said, though the Trust is aiming to maintain the same outside appearance of the building.

“From the streetscape, you won’t see anything,” she said. 

The informal presentation to town officials came after Circuit Arts, an organization that leases the Grange for arts programming, announced that the building’s second-floor heating system had broken, resulting in several cancellations. 

Project manager Mark Nicotera said the overall building project began with plans to replace the leaky roof before they unearthed larger structural problems. 

“It’s amazing, that building has stayed in a relatively-good place for a really, really long time,” he said. The building was constructed without a foundation, he said, with structural columns supported on boulder piles below the building. 

“We can’t make that work structurally anymore,” he said, instead outlining plans to install a new foundation and basement below the building to maximize space.

After the Trust determined to undertake a structural renovation, Ms. Previd said in an interview with the Gazette, they started plans to better insulate the building and replace the HVAC system.

“The system is 25 years old and keeps breaking,” she said. “It is not anywhere near achieving any sort of energy efficiency.”

The Trust is planning a temporary fix for the system as soon as they can book an HVAC technician. 

Historic district commissioners took no action on the proposal this week, with the trust set to present complete plans at a future meeting.

“We’re preparing ourselves…to take this to the next 150 years,” Ms. Previd said.