Shrewsbury's long-running push to replace its aging Department of Public Works facilities is back before town officials with a new price tag: about $31.2 million, down roughly $10 million from the plan voters rejected in 2024. The Municipal Facilities Optimization Committee rolled out the revised concept at an October 29 meeting and a Select Board workshop on November 2, and the Select Board was expected to discuss the plans at its meeting Tuesday.
The committee, known as MFOC, has been grinding on this project since 2024, according to Community Advocate. The target is the town's DPW complex on South Street, where the Water and Sewer Garage dates to the 1950s and the Highway Garage was built in the 1970s. Both structures were determined to be at the end of their useful lives, with failing masonry, water-damaged insulation, and insufficient space for modern operations, per the same report.
Shrewsbury created its Department of Public Works in 2018, bringing oversight of public infrastructure—including buildings, roads, parks and the water utility—under one department. The South Street garages therefore serve a department responsible for several core town systems, not just vehicle storage. The town’s account of the DPW’s creation says the Select Board approved it under Section 11 of the Town Manager Act.
A Costly First Attempt Collapsed at the Ballot
The project's original version called for a $26.8 million renovation-and-addition plan that would have demolished the Water and Sewer building, renovated the Highway Garage, and added 6,400 square feet of office space. That design blew past its $30.5 million budget by roughly $10 million, reaching $40.3 million, even though the project was expected not to raise residents' year-over-year taxes because of debt rolling off the books elsewhere. Shrewsbury voters rejected the plan on election day in 2024, with the final tally landing at 2,528 votes against and 1,993 in favor.
Rather than abandon the effort, MFOC decided to continue working on the project. In July, Assistant Town Manager Keith Baldinger announced the town had evaluated the project from scratch, restarting the planning process after the defeat. That July proposal envisioned demolishing both existing buildings and replacing them with a one-story, pre-engineered building for administrative offices and shop space, plus a separate building for vehicle storage. Baldinger said at the time that the South Street DPW buildings represented the town's most pressing need because of their condition and the critical daily operations they house, and he stressed that the town should provide clear and reliable information before asking residents to support funding again.
Even the Scaled-Back Options Came In Too High
That two-building concept didn't solve the cost problem. An estimator found in October that pricing for the earlier options remained too high, and the two-building July plan was estimated at roughly the same cost range as a separate $46 million estimate — the figure the original $40 million-scale DPW plan would carry at today's prices.
The newest proposal takes a different approach. It calls for demolishing the Water and Sewer building and constructing a single 29,000-square-foot administration and fleet-maintenance building, while retaining the existing DPW garage without renovation for cold storage. Baldinger said the existing building is in adequate condition for that cold-storage use. Construction costs for the plan run about $25 million, with the total estimated project cost at roughly $31.2 million.
Trade-Offs Built Into the Leaner Design
The town says it saved about $1.1 million through value engineering and a simpler, rectangular building design. Baldinger described the reduced single-building scope as still meeting the department's program needs, including administrative space for staff, a new fleet-maintenance area, and a large conference room that doubles as a voting site. But the pared-down plan comes with a notable gap: it does not include enough space to park all of the town's vehicles.
The current proposal's roughly $10 million in savings arrives even as construction costs have generally risen, according to the committee's figures. If the Select Board and Town Meeting ultimately sign off, the project could head to a townwide ballot vote in May 2027, with construction potentially starting in late 2027 if voters approve it.
The financing path matters because Town Meeting approval and voter approval do different jobs. Massachusetts’ debt-exclusion rules allow a town to raise property-tax revenue for a project’s debt payments beyond Proposition 2½ limits, with the exclusion lasting until the debt is retired. In towns, the Select Board—not Town Meeting—places the debt-exclusion question on the ballot. The May 2025 rejection therefore blocked that funding mechanism for the earlier package.
A History of Shifting Numbers
Shrewsbury's DPW saga has produced a tangle of cost estimates over the past two years. The 2025 version of the project — which bundled DPW work with roughly $4 million in Town Hall renovations, including life-safety and HVAC upgrades — was described in one report as a $40 million plan and in another as running closer to $42.4 million. The earlier 2024 DPW-only plan had an initial estimate of $26.8 million. That combined DPW-and-Town-Hall plan won Town Meeting approval in April 2025 but failed in the townwide vote that May. Town officials have not reconciled those differing cost figures publicly, and this latest $31.2 million proposal represents the committee's attempt to find a number residents will finally accept.
The committee’s original assignment was broader than the current DPW-only proposal: the Select Board established MFOC in May 2024 to assess both the South Street garages and Town Hall. In its 2025 update to Town Meeting, the committee said it had met more than 30 times and identified Vertex Companies as owner’s project manager, HKT Architects as the design firm and Fontaine Bros. as construction manager at risk. Town Meeting approved the combined $42.4 million project, but voters rejected its debt exclusion on May 6, 2025.
