The town Department of Public Works is expected revamp a building at Grove Street and its administrative from Town Hall at a renovation cost of $190,000 under an appropriation that Town Meeting voted in 2006, in part to simplify internal communication.

DPW Director John Bean wrote iIn an e-mail Aug. 24 that that Town Meeting that year set aside the money "for renovating Building B at the Grove Street Yard to accommodate moving the DPW-Administration division from the Town Hall to this Building B.

"The administration division consists of a deputy DPW director, office manager, accounts payable-clerk, personnel-payroll clerk, and a [half-time] recycling coordinator."

Right now, he wrote, Building B has the water billing meter records collection, the supervisors for water, sewer, parks, trees and highway, the operations manager locker room for the DPW workers and a meeting room for training.

He wrote: "Moving the DPW administration offices will greatly simplify internal communications on payroll, personnel records, water billing, bills payable and emergency response. It will also create a single DPW customer service location.

"On the Town Hall side, it will create usable office space very a very cramped Town Hall.

"When I started with the town, two years ago, the preliminary plans called for an extensive exterior addition, but cost analysis proved that the funds would not be sufficient.

"Redesign (with no exterior work) is nearly complete and we expect to go out for bid in the next two months."

In response to a query, he wrote that he expected the $190,000 cost to remain firm.

An anonymous poster to the Arlington list raised the issue Aug. 23 by writing:

"I heard over the weekend that the DPW is renovating their main building on Grove Street. Does anyone know the cost for this renovation and the need to move the personnel from their office at the town hall?"