(Spirit Lake)—Discussion of the city hall project was the topic of a workshop the Spirit Lake city council held over the noon hour Monday. City Administrator Mark Stevens says the council reviewed planning for the first phase of the project, consisting of the floor plan and a schematic design. He says the square footage of the building, to be built on the site of the existing city hall, is pretty much the same as originally proposed…(click here for comment.) “Very close. We’re at 6,700 square feet for the main floor of the building. We have a good public space for access into the front office and the public works and zoning area as well as a good layout for council chambers for the public to come and participate in the public meetings.”
The council did get some bad news during today’s (Mon.) session when it was informed the estimated cost of the project is coming in higher than what was budgeted…(click here for comment.) “We think there might be some discrepencies in the estimate, but we’ll work it out. I’m pretty confident that we’ll find a way to do this without compromising any of the key features we need to have in the building.”
The cost estimate presented today (Mon.) was $1.8 million.
Stevens says the planning is ready to move to the next phase…(click here for comment.) “We’re starting to look at finishes, floors, doors, we’ll do some final selection on the exterior brick. We’ll look at filling out the space that we’ve identified: what kinds of counters are we going to have, carpet, light fixtures. We’ll get into some of the specific elements of the building that will significantly impact the cost of the project.”
Stevens says the overall project remains on schedule…(click here for comment.) “We do plan on vacating this space in mid-August and we’ll start with some asbestos removal work later in that month, in August, and then demolition work should start, I believe, sometime in September.”
City offices will be temporarily located in the former Sound And Speed building on the north side of Highways 9 & 71 while the new facility is being built…a process that’s expected to take about 14 months.
Voters approved a $1.35 million bond issue for the project this past March.
