As city officials consider whether to spend $442,000 on a self-cleaning bathroom in downtown Keene, the city’s public works director said it’s the cheapest option in the long run.

The city compared the Urben Blu self-cleaning model to the Portland Loo, a $350,000 conventional stainless-steel toilet that other cities in New England use, Public Works Director Don Lussier said at Thursday’s meeting of a City Council committee. Though cheaper initially, the Portland Loo would be about $10,000 more per year to maintain, he added.

“I just want to make sure that everyone’s aware if the community ends up deciding that Portland Loo is the way to go because they’re a little less expensive to install,” he said. “I understand that, but it would mean we would need to have staff that work as well. So it would be an extra cost there.”

By contrast, the automated bathroom would clean the toilet and the floor on its own. It would also have a 20-minute-use timer that would alert city officials to prevent loitering. It’d need staff to restock and check it every other day, Lussier said.

He said the Portland Loo would cost $45,000 a year to maintain because it’d require staff to clean it more frequently, resulting in higher labor costs. The self-cleaning model would cost $35,310 per year, he said. 

A standard toilet, by comparison, would require twice a day cleaning, according to Lussier, who said the city does not have enough staff to clean a toilet that often.

Other than City Hall and the library, Keene does not have public restrooms. Keene used to maintain a public bathroom at the transportation center on Gilbo Avenue, but the city closed it because of vandalism, Andy Bohannon, then Keene’s parks and recreation director, previously said. 

The automated bathroom is part of the city’s Capital Improvement Program and is tentatively slated for fiscal year 2028. The timing of the project and its cost could change even if the City Council adopts the CIP.

At Thursday’s meeting of the council’s Finance, Organization and Personnel Committee, Councilor Bryan Lake said the city has discussed a downtown public bathroom as part of its plans to address homelessness for years, but he expressed caution at the nearly half-a-million-dollar price tag. 

“I’m not opposed to us having some sort of placeholder … for when we actually get to those budgets later,” Lake said. “I’m going to have a hard time getting on board with nearly half-a-million dollars, and who knows what the construction costs will be in two years’ time.”

The committee unanimously recommended the CIP, including the self-cleaning toilet, at Thursday’s meeting.

The document, which outlines the city’s plans from 2027 to 2033, will go before the full City Council next Thursday for a vote. If the CIP is adopted, the first planned year of capital projects will be added to the operating budget.

Although the meeting adjourned with no clear answer to the bathroom question, committee members agreed the issue does need to be addressed.

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