Town Issues Request For Proposals For Design Services for Proposed Grafton Community Television Headquarters

GRAFTON: The Town of Grafton has issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) for architectural design and engineering services for renovation of the former Grafton Police Station at 26 Providence Road for a proposed headquarters building for the Grafton Community Television studio and offices.

Currently located in a commercial building at 296 Providence Road, GCTV has been considering a move to the former police station for several years. In 2016 the Town contracted with BH + A architects to conduct a feasibility study of the building, but it was determined that the cost estimate was too expensive. The Grafton Cable Oversight Committee has made several modifications to this plan over the past 12 months, which are expected to significantly reduce the cost of the building's conversion.

Based on these changes proposed by the committee, the RFP seeks to hire the services of an architect and engineering team to design all aspects of the project and to furnish construction documents for bidding and to provide contract administration.

According to Richard Schultze, Chairman of the Town of Grafton Cable Oversight Committee, “We are moving forward with the next step of plans for a proposed new headquarters and studio. Our current facility, where we have been for many years, is not convenient to town offices or the high school and also lacks sufficient parking for Grafton citizens who participate in the creation of public access television programs shown on the town's cable systems and via the Internet. The costs of this proposed relocation would be paid by our cable fund at no cost to the general taxpayers."

Grafton Community Television provides programming on three distinct public access channels in the Town of Grafton over the Charter Communications and the Verizon cable systems. Schedules for Grafton Community Television Channels can be found at www.GraftonTV.org . Charter Channel 191/Verizon Channel 34 provides general interest programming, Charter Channel 192/Verizon Channel 33 broadcasts town government programming, and Charter Channel 194 /Verizon Channel 32 features school programming and high school sports events. GCTV is also available on Roku, as well as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Grafton Community Television studios and offices are located at 296 Providence Road in South Grafton.