Summerfest Committee and Rotary say yes; Town Council will decide
BY KATHRYN HRYCUSKO Special to the VOICE
Few were surprised when a portion of the arches gracing the entrance to Pelham Town Square collapsed during a windstorm this past February. The arches, which had become a symbol of the town in the time that they stood, had already exceeded their life expectancy by several years.
Initially built for Summerfest 2012, the arches were designed to stand for the duration of the festival and be disassembled afterwards to be moved to another location, such as a park, for a few months longer.
Todd Barber, the arches’ designer, recalled how the feature was brought to life.
“We brainstormed on what would be something that could be built by volunteers, cost the least amount of money, and be erected and in one day and then disassembled the next day,” he said in an interview with the Voice last week.
From the start, public opinion anecdotally indicated that residents were interested in keeping the arches in place for a longer period of time.
“They were such a big hit,” said local business owner Frank Adamson, a Rotarian and Summerfest Committee member. Adamson is leading an effort to get the arches rebuilt.
The town council of the time also voiced its admiration for the arches, recalled Barber, most notably when he presented councillors with a scale model before their construction.
“They got so excited that the member of council there went back, grabbed the rest of council and everybody in power at the Town and said, ‘How do we keep these?’” he said.
Barber said he told council that given they were made only of plywood, the arches would perhaps last five years at most, before an alternative would need to be thought of.
In the end, they were left in place and remained standing for nearly six and a half years.
During this time the Town monitored their condition, repainting them a couple of times. Last June, it became clear that plans for reconstruction or refinishing needed to be made as the structure had begun to deteriorate and grow fungus in some parts.
Aware of this need, the Summerfest Committee met last year to discuss possible solutions to extend their longevity, chief among them the idea of enclosing the plywood.
“We were going to recover them with some marine grade plywood and have the plywood electrically painted. We thought it'd give it another ten years,” said Bill Gibson, Chair of the Summerfest Committee.
This idea was critiqued by Mark Shoalts, an engineer who had been directly involved with the arches’ construction, in a letter he wrote to the Voice last October.
“I have serious concerns that the proponents of this [preservation plan] do not understand the difficulties in accomplishing this and the inherent danger it poses,” Shoalts wrote, calling the plan to permanently waterproof the structure “an impossible task.”
This particular debate however, became immaterial in February when the winds of change blew in.
“Mother Nature had another thing in store for us,” Gibson said.
Debate now revolves around whether they should be rebuilt at all.
Frank Adamson said that the Rotary Club is keen to see them go back up.
“Our club has used them. We have a world polio day, which is in October every year, and the last two years we've gone and had them change the colors to purple,” said Adamson, speaking of the lights on the arches. He also spoke to their utility. “For Summerfest, the service clubs, the Kinsmen, the Lions, and my club, Rotary, have always served beer and wine at those events. We know we appreciate them, the shade is there in the heat of the day when you're serving beer.”
Part of the original idea for the arches was that they would serve such a purpose—a location where people could meet during Summerfest, recalled Todd Barber.
“It was the idea of a place to gather and have a beer without being in the beer tent—a central focal point for why you're closing the streets. It needed to have some physicality, some scale and be central. The needs come up. We need shade, we need signage, and we needed to be able to furnish it and set it up.”
The arches provided all of these for the duration of Summerfest, and continued to do so in subsequent festivals such as Christmas Under the Arches.
Bill Gibson also mentioned the importance of the arches in establishing a public gathering space.
“The arches were put up as a temporary measure and they've seem to have created a public space in the town.”
Gibson thinks that this creation of a space where people can assemble and relax during the day, or before going out for dinner, will become even more important considering the increase in development in Pelham. With more people moving to live around the town centre, it is likely that they will use a public space. Gibson, like Adamson, is eager to see the arches return.
Beyond utility, the arches have become, for many, a landmark and symbol specific to Pelham. Their image features on many websites about Pelham, brochures about events, and on the front of the Pelham Community Newsletter.
“They did become part of a place in that you knew you were going into town center when you saw the arches,” said Barber.
“They're kind of iconic to me,” said Adamson, “[They’re] reflective of Fonthill in particular now that they've been there for this amount of time.”
However, in March, an opinion poll run by the Voice suggested that not all Pelham residents share this enthusiasm to see the arches rebuilt. A small majority of 55% said they would like to see the arches return, with 64% of respondents saying that they were unwilling to donate even a single dollar to the project.
Despite only a small majority expressing interest in their resurrection, Adamson is confident that if another poll were to be conducted after a Summerfest without the arches, it would show different results.
“I think if you did a poll in the midst of Summerfest this year with them not there, the vast majority of people there are going to say, ‘Where are the arches?’” said Adamson.
He and Gibson are also optimistic that the arches can be rebuilt on private funding alone. Both the Rotary Club and Summerfest Committee are aware that the Town is unlikely to be forthcoming with any money, and that the majority of Pelham citizens are unlikely to wish to see their tax money go toward the cause.
The contingency fund that Summerfest had originally dedicated to the preservation of the arches will instead be put toward new ones. The Rotary Club also intends to donate a substantial amount of money toward the reconstruction project. Adamson and Gibson both also said that Rotary, in conjunction with the Summerfest Committee, plans to hold events to raise the rest of the money.
“There are lots of companies that are doing very well in this community,” said Adamson. “I put my initial feelers out to people that can actually afford to do something significant and it is very positive.”
The plan to use the same design as the original arches would also be a cost-saving factor.
“The lighting is already there and that can go back up and the design is already done. So you're not paying someone to design something new. That helps to keep the costs down,” said Adamson. “The cement pillars that they rest on are still there, they're salvaged and they can be used. So that just helps to keep the costs down to save money.”
The current proposal being put forth is that although the same design and bases would be used, the arches would be made out of glulam—timber that has been glued and laminated to form a durable and thick beam, capable of standing for a long period of time.
“Glulam is used often for outdoor structures and has a long history,” said Barber, “It has been in use for outdoor structures since the ‘50s.”
Barber estimates that if made with glulam, the arches could last close to 20 years with only an occasional refinishing.
Although the main design and footprint of the arches is proposed to be kept, there are some changes that have been suggested.
“We're going to incorporate wiring in the arches so that we can have lighting— so we won't have pipes and stuff on the outside of the arches,” said Gibson.
He also said that there was some thought to raise the height of the arches in order to allow more traffic to pass under them, specifically trucks that exceeded the previous height restrictions of the old design.
Barber however was unsure of the practicality of the change to the height of the structure.
“If you make it taller it's a bigger lever. You’re going to need different foundations,” said Barber. “So yeah, they could build it taller, but that would also involve a redesign and reengineering.”
As of yet, no specific design is finalized, and Gibson said that proponents of the rebuild hope to receive input from the community in the coming months.
“We also want to make sure that everybody sees it before we build it, and we'll offer people an opportunity to comment on this as well.”
Pelham residents will have an opportunity to do so, as a scale model is planned and will be displayed in a window front near the location of the past arches, with a donation bucket and comment bucket next to it.
While plans are being brainstormed for design and funding, whether or not the plan to rebuild the arches come to fruition remains to be seen. The project hinges on Town Council’s approval. The arches would stand on Town property, and would have to be covered by Town insurance policies.
Adamson and Gibson were to meet with council on Monday, after the Voice went to press, to present their case for the rebuilding. Both men expressed an assumption that council would decide immediatelt whether the project could move forward.
Councillor John Wink, who is also a member of the Summerfest Committee, said otherwise.
“I don’t believe council has any position on the arches at this point in time,” said Wink. “There’s some additional work that has to be done with respect to their proposal, so I’m not sure council’s going to be ready [to make a decision].”
One thing is certain. Regardless of how early council makes a decision, there will be no arches for this year’s Summerfest. The earliest they might be up, following a decision by council, fundraising, and construction, is January or February of next year, at least in time for Summerfest 2020.
