Though the Buzzards Bay Coalition has not yet signed the short-term lease it needs to get funds to lease and renovate the Onset bathhouse, the project is well underway.

Following a Selectmen's meeting March 8 at which it was announced the coalition was running out of time to get the lease signed, coalition President Mark Rasmussen clarified that there are two draft leases for the bathhouse in the works: the immediate six-month summer lease, and the long-term, 99-year lease.

He said the coalition is actively in the process of working with the town to finish up the two leases. The coalition will bid on the long-term lease prior to April's Town Meeting; and, if it wins the bid, all voters will have to do is release the Community Preservation Committee funds that have already been earmarked for the project.

"The project has such broad support," Rasmussen said. "I don't want folks thinking there is something wrong with the process."

The six-month lease will allow the coalition to get $215,000 from the Community Preservation Committee to contribute to the renovation of the bathhouse, and the article to release these approved funds to the coalition goes before the voters on April 25.

“One of the requirements is that you have to have control of the property,” Board of Selectmen Chair Tropeano said. “The Buzzards Bay Coalition doesn’t have control of the property, because it doesn’t have the lease agreement.”

The reason the coalition decided to follow this path is because will allow the voters to see "the whole project, the entire package all at one time," Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen said the project will cost about $2 million. In addition to the Community Preservation Committee funding, which the committee already agreed to endorse at April's Town Meeting, the coalition is applying for a $400,000 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and will privately fundraise for the rest of it.

The discovery center plans include the purchase and renovation of the bathhouse, as well as Wickets Island and several acres of Burgess Point. Coalition President Mark Rasmussen said the bathhouse would be a sort of base out of which it can run several programs out to Wickets Island, and Burgess Point.

Rasmussen said the bathhouse will look the same this summer, and that Nemasket Kayak will still run out of it as a subletter from the coalition. The kayak rental shop will continue to function through the long-term lease, too. Only the condition and appearance of the bathhouse will change.

Tropeano said the town agreed to lease the bathhouse to the coalition for six months for the low price of $2 per square foot, “which probably had something to do with the condition of the bathhouse.”

Though Rasmussen said the short-term lease will be signed before Town Meeting, it is still possible the coalition could get the money retroactively. If voters at Town Meeting decide to give the coalition the money, despite the coalition not signing the lease beforehand, the coalition may sign the lease after Town Meeting to request the funds.

Community Preservation Committee Co-Chair Sandy Slavin said that if the money remained unused, it would be returned to the committee, “because it wouldn’t be able to be used how it is designated.”

But this doesn’t mean the committee or anyone else could use it immediately, as the money “can only be used for what it is voted on.” It would require a separate vote to release the money again, Slavin said.

Fortunately, Slavin said, even if the money does get tied up in the article, it is not as though “$215,000 is a lot of money, when we have over $1 million available.”

“We are not hurting another project, because we set this aside,” Slavin said. “It is not uncommon for money to be set aside, and then not used for years, after the article is voted on.”