After serving as an overflow office for the Tisbury finance department, the Katharine Cornell Theatre is a theatre once more.
Tisbury officials had been using the theatre atop the 1844 town hall since 2020 due to a lack of space in the municipal building. But this week, a workspace shuffle has freed up the venue so it can go back to hosting events.
The finance department will now be on the first floor of town hall. Town administrator John (Jay) Grande, the select board and Tisbury’s human resources and purchasing departments have relocated to the public works facility at 115 High Point Lane, near the town hall annex.
The reorganization comes after the town had been looking at potentially spending close to $300,000 to buy modular temporary offices for 55 West William street or another town-owned property to alleviate the space crunch.
“We have saved a considerable amount of money for the taxpayer,” select board member John Cahill said at Wednesday’s board meeting.
Select board member Abbe Burt suggested the public works facility instead. Relocating the management offices will give Tisbury more breathing room to develop a permanent solution for overcrowding at town hall, Mr. Cahill said.
“More importantly, the Katharine Cornell Theatre will be available for community space and town meeting space, including the select board, in March,” he said.
The March 8 select board meeting, including a hearing on a proposed anchoring moratorium for Lake Tashmoo, will take place in the theatre.
Online participation will be available through new videoconferencing technology that is also being installed at the Tisbury Senior Center and the emergency services facility, information technology manager Heidi Rydzewski said.
The town has also begun booking the theatre for community events, including the annual Bloomsday celebration June 17.
Among other business Wednesday, the select board appointed Caitlin Burbidge and Henry Nieder to the town’s affordable housing committee and heard from chair Roy Cutrer that Tisbury will receive $263,807 in Steamship Authority embarkation fees for 2022.
That’s up from $250,699 in embarkation revenue the year before, Mr. Cutrer said. A bill recently filed in state legislature would increase the embarkation fee, currently 50 cents for a one-way, full-fare ticket on any ferry service, to $2 a ride.
Also Wednesday, Mr. Grande noted that the state highway department’s multi-year Beach Road project has come to an end.
The state-owned stretch of road from Wind’s Up to Five Corners now has bike lanes and its five-foot-wide sidewalks are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said.
Power poles that formerly sprouted from narrow walkways have been relocated, and the whole row of poles along the harbor has been removed, offering a clear view, Mr. Grande said.
“It should be a massive improvement this summer,” he said.
