The Town of Greenfield is applying for a one-year extension to complete renovations to the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse using funds from a CDFA Community Center Program Grant.

The Greenfield Meetinghouse, which was built in 1795, is on the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest meetinghouse in New Hampshire used by both church and state. At Thursday night’s Greenfield Select Board meeting, Town Administrator Aaron Patt reported that he is working with the Southwest Regional Planning Committee to request the extension on the grant. According to Patt, Greenfield has contracted with SWRPC for grant management services to ensure that the complex federal regulations associated with the grant are met.

“The SWRPC is working on the extension for the Greenfield Community Center project at the Meeting House. The town believes that all of the paperwork has been supplied and that SWRPC will submit the paperwork to CDFA in the near future,” Patt stated. 

Patt noted that Greenfield is on a shorter time frame to complete construction for the grant, as the town was not notified it had won the grant until after another grantee had to withdraw from the application process in mid-March. 

“If we receive the extension, it would give us until August 2026 to finish the work. The CDFA has been working with the governor’s office to offer this extension,” Patt said.

The town has engaged architects Misiaszek Turpin for the design of the project and Milestone Construction as construction managers. 

“We are still finalizing our engineering and design plans with the architects,” Patt said. “Right now we are just waiting on final drawings.”

Select Board member Mike Borden said that after a recent tour of the building, Milestone is wrapping up the engineering plans.

“There was some question about the original footings under the building and whether they could bear the weight of the elevator shaft, but in fact,  the front part of the building, which supports the bell tower, was added later,” Borden said.

According to Patt, the first step in the Meetinghouse renovation project will be to extend the town’s sewer line under Francestown Road (Route 136) to the Meetinghouse to mitigate issues with the old septic system. 

“Currently, there is a town sewer connection across the street at the police station. We need to get that hooked up to the old Meetinghouse system before Nov. 15, as according to state law, you can’t dig up state roads after that date. So that part if the project needs to get done (as soon as possible),” said Select Board member Mason Parker. 

Jesseca Timmons is secretary of Friends of the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse.