By Alice Waugh

Don’t call it the basement any more—call it Bemis Down Under, or maybe just Bemis Lower Level.

At an official ribbon-cutting on June 10, visitors sipped coffee and toured the spiffy new spaces in the previously dank and crowded subterranean portion Bemis Hall centering on a carpeted, well-lit meeting room with a large flat-screen TV, a floral loveseat and artwork donated by residents.

“It doesn’t look like anybody’s basement,” said Selectman Renel Fredriksen, who shared the ribbon-cutting duties with Dot Taylor, chair of the COA’s board of directors.

The meeting room will also serve as an expanded space for the weekly Friends of the Lincoln Library used book sale, because carts of books can now be wheeled in from the nearby storage area for easier access. Other new amenities include two handicapped-accessible bathrooms, a storage area for medical equipment such as walkers that are loaned out by the Council on Aging (COA), and a private office for the COA’s volunteer counselors. There’s also storage for the Historical Society are a large walk-in closet for the Lincoln Minute Men for muskets and uniforms.

“My office used to be in my flash drive,” said COA volunteer Marilyn Lewis, who previously had to talk to clients wherever she could find two chairs. “it was a huge privacy issue if people were talking about personal finances or health issues.”

The timing for the opening is good with summer just around the corner. Bemis Hall is not air-conditioned, so the first and second floors can get uncomfortably hot, but groups and activities can now simply move to the cool basement space, which also has a new ventilation system.

The renovation will improve things a bit for the COA, but it’s not a long-term solution. “This not the end of the story; it’s the beginning of the story,” Fredriksen said, noting that the town hopes to build a community center. “This relieves some of the pressure in the meantime.”

Years ago, creating this much more space in the Bemis basement wouldn’t have been possible, since the main area was taken up by two large steam boilers. A space-efficient gas heating system was installed several years ago, and in the latest project, more space was freed up when workers removed a piece of Lincoln history: the huge air tanks that fed the air horn in the building’s cupola. The tanks, which stored air from a compressor elsewhere in the building and weighed several hundred pounds, had to be cut apart.

In bygone days, whenever there was a fire in town, the horn sent out a series of coded blasts that helped residents identify the location of the fire using a cheat sheet supplied by the town. The horn also honked at the same time each day so people could synchronize their clocks and watches.

The construction took about 10 weeks altogether, though the project had a bumpy beginning when officials opened the bids and found that they all exceeded the amount budgeted by the town. Fortunately, Lincoln Facilities Manager Michael Haines stepped in to act as general contractor, which saved enough money to avoid having to go back to Town Meeting for more funds and delaying the project significantly. As work proceeded, some details such storage configurations were changed with the input of those who’ll be using the space.

“Everyone had good suggestions here. It was really a team effort,” said Town Administrator Tim Higgins.