MARION — An influx of funds from the state is coming to Marion in order to upgrade the town’s central building for local government and administration.

The $206,000 in grant money, announced Thursday, Oct. 24, will be used to bring the Marion Town House up to building code and current safety requirements, including Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, according to town officials.

The work will represent another series of renovations to the building, which received significant exterior improvements three years ago.

Those renovations were completed just a few years after debate regarding the status of the town hall — a discourse that boiled down to whether to build an entirely new town house, extensively renovate the existing building or incrementally renovate it — filled Select Board sessions and town meetings.

Now, plans are underway to make the Marion Town House more accessible to the public and bring the building up to code.

“With this grant, it's definitely going to make the town offices more accessible to everybody in the community,” Grant Administrator Emily Miller said.

In order to make the town house ADA compliant, lifts will be installed at three different locations around the building, according to Facilities Director Shaun Cormier.

That will include a handicap lift from the first floor to second floor.

“Once you reach a point of substantial renovations to a building, you need to fully upgrade everything to the current code,” Cormier said. “When we renovated the exterior, we reached that limit.”

ADA compliance also means installing new signage with braille, according to Cormier. 

Other planned upgrades include renovating the entrance staircase to the town house on Main Street.

The steps to the stone staircase are too tall, and the staircase’s treads — the horizontal portions of the stairs — aren’t wide enough, according to Cormier.

“We're just making it more comfortable,” Cormier said.

The $206,000 in grant money coming to Marion is part of an overall announcement of $161 million in grants awarded by the Gov. Healey administration to 171 Massachusetts communities in order “to support local economic development projects,” a news release said.

It is the sole award coming to the Tri-Town from the package of economic development funding.

Marion’s grant derived from the Rural Development Fund, which provides monetary awards to communities with a population density below 500 people per square mile or a total population fewer than 7,000, according to Miller.

“It was a very competitive round this year,” Miller said.

In addition to ADA compliance, the grant will also be used for future safety upgrades, like the installation of a fire sprinkler system and HVAC system.

The Marion Town House currently utilizes a steam system, according to Cormier, who said it’s “very inefficient.” 

Every office in the building also uses a window unit air conditioner, Cormier said.

“They're loud,” Cormier said. “They take up a lot of room.”

The plan is to upgrade the town hall with a heat pump system that will be able to provide heating and cooling to each area and each office of the building, according to Cormier.

The project will act as a “modernization” that will make the Marion Town House “more of a comfortable, more inviting workplace,” Cormier said. 

The project will need to be approved at Town Meeting in the spring, according to Cormier.