Jim Thorpe Borough Council plans to vote next week on whether to go forward with plans to move its administration offices to a portion of the top floor of Memorial Hall and its police department to the building’s bottom level.

“Time is of the essence,” Council President Greg Strubinger said. “In light of a few things, mainly the grants we have coming for the project, we need to get moving.”

In recent months, a group led by Jim Thorpe resident Amy Kubishin campaigned for council to alter its plan and keep a space for roller-skating in Memorial Hall. Skating was a staple in the Memorial Hall basement until a volunteer-based park commission, which ran the activity, dissolved over a decade ago.

Strubinger left the door open for the borough’s current public services garage on the Memorial Park grounds to be repurposed for indoor entertainment as Jim Thorpe plans to construct a new garage on property it owns near its water plant on West Broadway.

“The current garage is about 8,400 square feet and we feel that could be used as an indoor facility for youth,” Strubinger said. “We would also do what we can to assist with grant funding for that repurposing.”

Kubishin said Thursday night the “Save The Rink” group was open to that idea and hoped to see the borough follow through.

“If that is something borough council would be willing to work with us on, that would be great,” Kubishin told council. “But we don’t want to be shrugged off and never hear from you again.

Currently, borough office staff and the Jim Thorpe Police Department share a 3,332-square-foot building built in 2008 adjacent to Memorial Hall.

After a 2016 feasibility study cited concerns over safety and available space given the building’s current layout, the borough has been looking to relocate office staff and police.

Earlier in Thursday’s workshop meeting, Kubishin pitched a plan of moving the roller rink to the top floor of Memorial Hall, which would allow the police department to move into the lower level. Borough administration, under that plan, would stay in its current office, adjacent to Memorial Hall, but be able to utilize the full square footage. Administration currently shares that building with the police department.

“I think that’s a no fail option for the borough as well as its residents,” Kubishin said.

Should the borough stray from its original plans, officials said, significant grant money could be off the table.

The borough has secured $4.74 million in United States Department of Agriculture loan financing and is receiving $3.96 million in federal appropriations money based on the original project scope.

“We wrote the grant based on the administration offices moving to the top floor of Memorial Hall and the police department to the bottom floor,” Councilman Mike Yeastedt. “If we change that, we have to give that money back and it’s going to go to some other county. We won’t see it again.”

The borough adopted two resolutions in 2018, one of which called for renovating Memorial Hall, using one-third of the top floor for office staff while keeping the rest of the space as a community center, and moving its police department to the bottom floor.

“Memorial Hall deviated away from community use at some point and turned into a banquet hall that had to generate a profit and it shut out a lot of nonprofits from using it,” Strubinger said. “We want the building to be used again for things like blood drives, veterans events, church events, etc. Even with the administration offices being here, there will be a 300-seat hall and lots of potential uses for the space.”

The borough operated the top floor of Memorial Hall as a banquet and social hall facility until 2017. A 2018 document drafted by Spillman Farmer Architects on behalf of the borough states that efforts to operate the facility as a banquet facility resulted in an average of $75,000 of taxpayer funds per year used to supplement the facility.

Jim Thorpe has already spent $189,645 toward its ultimate project goals. Strubinger said the hall would need $800,000 in improvements to save it from damage and deterioration no matter what its future use will be. That is equivalent, he said, to a 10-mil property tax increase.

A pre-COVID-19 estimate for the entire Memorial Hall project was $2.25 million, but that figure jumped to $3.72 million in May 2021 and the projects were sidelined.

With new financing in place, Strubinger said it’s time to move forward.

“These projects will meet the needs of the borough well into the foreseeable future,” he said. “It will prevent further need for relocating facilities, rental expenses and the purchase of additional real estate.”