NORWAY – Selectmen agreed Thursday night to spend up to $25,000 for an engineer’s work to help stabilize the three-story brick Norway Opera House.

Alfred Hodson III of Resurgence Engineering and Preservation of Portland submitted a plan for the work, which he hopes to have completed by Dec. 1.

“We’re trying to keep people safe and keep the building upright. We’re not trying to buy the building or put money into the renovation,” Town Manager David Holt said of the need to shore up the centerpiece of the downtown National Historic District before snow arrives.

A laser monitoring device has been placed in the building to detect any movement in the three floors and the bell tower above them.

“We can tell if there is any movement,” Town Administrator David Holt told selectmen Thursday night. “Hopefully that’s an early warning sign. We just don’t know.”

The 1894 structure was seriously damaged Sept. 21 when a half dozen rotted and weakened roof trusses broke, sending water from the rubber-membraned sagging roof and more from a third-floor broken sprinkler pipe cascading through all three floors to Main Street, according to an initial engineer’s report.

The partial collapse, mainly along the back wall next to Pennsseewassee Street, left the building in an “extremely unstable” condition, Hodson said in his report to the town.

Since the partial collapse, owner Barry Mazzaglia of Bitim Enterprises in Londonderry, N.H. has been trying to shore up the building. He doesn’t have insurance on the building.

Holt told selectmen Thursday night that he wanted to make it clear to residents that the town’s involvement at this time is simply to oversee the owner in his repair to be sure what he’s doing is safe for him and the scores of businesspeople and residents who are in the area each day, and that the building is safe.

“It’s becoming a tourist attraction,” Holt said, referring to people who gather each day to look at the building.

No taxpayer money is going into the project; the town is paying Hodson with community development block grant money, Holt said.

Selectmen agreed to use up to $25,000 of the $72,5000 in that account to pay for Hodson’s services. He did an assessment of the building last week for $3,000. Next, he plans to write reports, take photos and provide details describing the conditions and possible repair techniques by Oct. 27 for $8,160. Lastly, he plans to provide the town and Mazzaglia with a stabilization design by Dec. 1 for $11,400.

To date, the town owes structural engineer Joseph Neville of Poland about $600 for his initial assessment about a week after the collapse.

Holt said if the building was not in the highly populated downtown, and if it were not of such historic importance to Norway, the town’s interest might be a little less.

He said his concern, at this point, is simply to ensure the building is safe.

“I am concerned. We need to act now before the winter,” he said.

The building was constructed by the Norway Building Association, and from 1920 to the mid-1970s was owned by the town, which used its upper floors for cultural and civic events.

Since then, it’s had a succession of private owners, but the second and third floors have remained vacant while the first has been occupied by retail businesses.

Mazzaglia, a developer, bought it for $225,000 in 2003 after it was placed on the state’s Most Endangered Historic Properties list by Maine Preservation of Portland.

The imposing tower encases an E. Howard clock that had been maintained by the town until the partial roof collapse.