ANDREWS Andrews City Hall should have have a new building to call home next summer.
A groundbreaking was held Monday at the site, which sits right across from the current City Hall at 111 Logsdon St.
Including furniture and equipment, City Manager Steve Eggleston said the project cost is budgeted at $4.2 million. Construction will cost $3.9 million.
“That includes contingencies, so if we don’t spend the contingencies it could be less,” Eggleston said.
Pate Architects of Midland is the architect and Pharr & Co. in Lubbock is the contractor.
The current building was constructed in 1951, Eggleston said.
“… We knew our police station is actually (in) another building over on Main Street and it’s too small for our police department. So we hired our architect to decide what’s the smartest thing for us to do with our existing police department, our existing city hall and this new land that we got for a bargain. And he, after doing all kinds of facility studies, space studies and things like that, he determined that the most efficient, effective thing to do would actually build a new city hall and move the police department to the existing city hall,” Eggleston said.
“It was cheaper to build new than it was to try to renovate that building for the City Hall needs But for police department needs, it’ll be fine. They’ll be able to renovate it for a lot less,” he added.
Eggleston said work will start this week and the building should be done by next summer. The building is going to have the same footprint as the existing city hall, but it won’t be two stories.
The site is on two lots.
“… Luckily, we can stay in the existing Hall City Hall until it’s built and then we just move everybody over. We have Municipal Court there when they do the renovation for the police department. That is something we’re going to have to try to figure out in a couple of years when we’re renovating City Hall for the police department is how we do that. We may have to have some temporary buildings or office space or something for our court. We also have our our permitting group in there that we may have to figure out what to do with,” Eggleston said. “But it’s really going to be an easy transition for this building. I think there’s going to be 14 people that are in City Hall that will just move over here. It won’t be that difficult.”
As for the current police department, plans are to move community development and community services group there. This includes services like building permits and code compliance.
“They need space to lay out plans and things like that. That’ll be a great building for them. Plus, it’s on Main Street. It sort of encourages building development … so it will be a good place for that type of service,” Eggleston said.
