Against the looming prospect of significant debt for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School building project, which comes to an Islandwide vote on June 2, Tisbury officials intend to ask local voters in April to fund construction of a new town hall.

At a public meeting Jan. 6, the two-member Tisbury select board voted to proceed with a two-story, L-shaped building that will gather most town offices under one roof on High Point Lane, where the planning, building and health departments now operate out of a pair of ramshackle modulars.

Tisbury town meeting voters previously approved $600,000 in design and architecture services for a consolidated town hall.

An appointed committee, chaired by Rick Homan, has been working with Icon Architecture of Boston to develop a project design for the one-acre site, which was chosen last October by select board members John Cahill and Roy Cutrer. 

The town has been struggling with mold and a lack of space in the town hall.

Ray Ewing

The town has been struggling with mold and a lack of space in the town hall.

Ray Ewing

Board chair Christina Colarusso has been absent from duty since mid-September.

The building design was still in an early stage and cost estimates are yet to come, Ned Collier of Icon told Mr. Cahill and Mr. Cutrer.

“We will continue developing the selected scheme in preparation for submitting it to the cost estimator at the end of this month,” Mr. Collier said.

At the Tisbury planning board meeting Jan. 7, Mr. Homans said he expects to receive the estimates by late February or early March, with the goal of asking voters for their borrowing approval at the annual town meeting April 28.

Private and corporate donations also should be considered to help fund the project, he said.

As shared with the town boards, Icon’s town hall concept includes rooftop solar panels and separate parking lots for up to 34 employees and 26 visitors, who would enter the building through different doors.

Overflow parking could be made available as needed at the nearby town transfer station, architect Mark McKevitz said.

The Vineyard Transit Authority’s route 10 shuttle bus to downtown Vineyard Haven stops about 400 feet from the proposed building, about a three-minute walk, Mr. McKevitz said.

A connector path to State Road would provide off-street access for cyclists and pedestrians, he said.

Mr. Cahill and Mr. Cutrer reviewed two design concepts by Icon before making their choice last week.

The second design was similar in most regards, but the building was angled differently on the building lot and had a shared entrance for staff and visitors.

Each design included a public meeting room and lobby that could be locked off from town offices for after-hours events.

Before voting, Mr. Cahill expressed some disappointment that both options lacked any of the traditional elements that have been worked into other modern buildings on the Island, such as the Martha’s Vineyard Airport with its gray shingles and peaked roof lines.

“It doesn’t give me a Vineyard feel,” Mr. Cahill said.

The site, however, is surrounded by industrial uses, Mr. Homans said. 

Its nearest neighbors include two water towers, the Tisbury public works department, the town transfer station for waste and recycling and the park and ride lot.

“We don’t want to … put something in there that looks really out of character,” Mr. Homans said.

The unembellished design also will help keep costs under control, Mr. Collier said.

“We’re trying to take advantage of this more industrial location to allow a flat roof scenario. There’s a lot of money that gets tied up in creating the sloped roofs. We have studied it,” he said.

Tisbury has lacked a consolidated municipal center for decades. Its nominal town hall on Spring street, beneath Katharine Cornell Theatre, holds only the finance and town clerk’s departments, after toxic mold in other offices there led the town administration and personnel divisions to move in with the public works department on High Point Lane.

Former town administrator John (Jay) Grande, who was succeeded in early 2025 by Joseph LaCivita, had advocated for leasing the former Educomp and telephone company building on State Road, but that idea was scrapped in favor of choosing from one of the many town-owned properties in Tisbury.

The selection committee and architects pored over more than 80 parcels last year before identifying 66 High Point Lane and 55 West William street as the most promising sites for a town hall development.

Officials also considered, but later dropped the possibility of relocating the police department from its downtown station to the new site, which Icon said would require another 9,000 square feet of building space in addition to the 15,000 square feet needed for the town hall offices.