What to do with the Marion Town House has been a hot debate in recent weeks. Fix it, leave it or tear it down, residents have discussed a number of possible plans to deal with the historic building.

On Thursday, October 18, the Town House Advisory Committee detailed its recommendations for the building.

“We, as a committee, decided to send a letter to the Marion Selectmen with three recommendations,” said Chair Jay Ryder.

The first recommendation is to renovate the entire building based on the study done by Durland and Van Voorhis Architects in 2011, which valued repairs at approximately $5 million dollars.

“The second recommendation was to renovate the historically significant front portion of the building and reconfigure the back portion,” said Ryder.

With this recommendation, the rear of the building could be opened up to needs of the town, including the Council on Aging and the library.

The final idea from the committee was to tear down the rear of the building, which is not historical and rebuild it to suit those same needs.

What the committee did not suggest was demolishing the entire building. “The Town House is a very sound structure,” said Ryder.

With 21,000 square feet in the entire building, he said, “We could consolidate the amount of space that is there and could probably use half that to operate all of the boards and committees and selectmen and everything else. There’s a lot of wasted space in that building.”

Ryder said Selectmen may bring one, two or all three of the recommendations to Town Meeting in the spring.

“It’s very clear to everyone on the committee that we will need to hire a project manager to do some sort of a study on which one of those three options is the most feasible,” he said.