Stonington — After two years of planning, and a higher than expected $2,039,000 price tag, a Town Hall heating system project that will upgrade the current 30-year-old boiler with two propane boilers is slated to begin next month.

“It’s only been actively in the works for two years, but this has been a long-standing issue at Town Hall,” said First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough on Wednesday.

The project, initially estimated to cost between $1.2 and $1.5 million and awarded to sole bidder, All State Construction of Farmington, will begin in June with work projected to be complete in September.

Town Engineer Chris Greenlaw said All State’s base bid of $1.9 million was in line with a similar price tag the town received from a third-party estimator.

He said the total cost for the project includes a 10% contingency buffer, plaster repairs, masonry, paint and any asbestos abatement that may be required.

On May 4, the Board of Finance approved the use of funds from various Public Works line items to cover the costs along with $335,323 in American Rescue Plan funds.

An additional $226,113 will come from defunct capital improvement projects, including left over money from the Town Hall roof replacement project and money that had been designated for repairs to West Broad Street School, which are no longer needed due to terms of a lease agreement with St. Michael’s School.

An initial plan also included installing a new air conditioning system but was scaled back to just the hearing upgrade due to budgetary constraints. Greenlaw said the work is designed so that a cooling system could be added in the future.

The two new boilers will provide redundancy for the system but also reduce costs for both fuel and maintenance. The current radiant heat system in the building will be augmented with a small fan unit that will disperse heat from a coil of hot water pipes and create a more temperate environment with less temperature fluctuation.

Greenlaw and Tom Curioso, head of highways and facilities for the public works department, on Tuesday attributed the higher cost to increased material and labor costs as well as a complicated phasing plan to keep the Town Hall open for business while work is being done.

Curioso said the public works department will be very involved in the phasing plan which will create flexible spaces that can be used by town departments during the work.

Some departments may have limited access to files, but others, with time sensitive needs for access, will relocate files to temporary locations.

Departments that do not have significant public interaction may relocate to the Department of Public Works, the Police Department or may work from home.

Some non-public documents and other secured information may need to be transferred out of the building temporarily, and in some departments that cannot tolerate significant disruption, such as Information Technology, work would be prioritized and may even be completed on weekends.

“We’re going to have to communicate really well with residents because people are going to be in all different locations,” Chesebrough said, adding that the town will post the information on its website as well as on signs at Town Hall.