BY PAUL MITCHELLNorth Country This Week

CANTON – A capstone project by a group of Clarkson University students focused on plans for a new municipal building in the Village of Canton.

Under the tutelage of Professor Erik Backus, the team of eight seniors presented their findings through a slide show presentation to elected leaders at a joint meeting in April. The cost of the new building would be $13,105,310, a little over one half of a projected cost of $25 million presented to village and town board members in March 2023 by BCA Architects and Engineers, Watertown.

Since last March, a joint building committee has met numerous times to discuss municipal building issues.

“We enjoyed working with the Clarkson students. I’m impressed with their work and we got some nice ideas from them,” said Mayor Michael Dalton. “They provided us with a comprehensive plan and it gave them an opportunity to work on a real world project.”

The plans then and now involved tearing down the McDonald’s Restaurant at 64 Main St. and building a new building on the footprint, leaving the old building in use during construction. The old building footprint would then become part of the parking lot and greenspace. The building would have a backward “J” layout with Main Street on the bottom  of the J.

The eight students, all seniors, are Jacob Vaccaro, Claudia Scala, Chessney Buell, Caleb Gardner, Addison Wallace, Shazoi Hall, Jeffrey Lavair and John Dundon.

The students designed the building with courtroom and court offices on both the first and second floors. The student design did not include the historian’s office and police department.

The configuration of the building would allow for 54 parking spaces with four handicapped spaces.

The Clarkson students’ study included a breakdown of costs - $201,000 for demolition, $10.5 million to construct a new building, $1 million for site work, and $1.3 million for soft costs. 

The presentation also cited hurdles and risks associated with the project and proposed action. They include:

• A clock tower – it was determined that the clock tower is not necessary if it does not align with the current design scope
• Existing utilities – the team needs to meet with relevant personnel to request a site plan that includes the existing on-site utilities.
• HVAC and plumbing systems – The design team adjusted the original design to efficiently incorporate HVAC and plumbing systems while maintaining consistency with the original design.
• The original design concept did not take into account accurate site dimensions; the original design concept did not fit on the site blueprint — the design team took a site visit to the existing municipality building and conducted measurements to adequately size the building design. The original design shape, shell and model were kept the same, however, the overall dimensions of the building had to be shortened.