- November 22, 2024
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The elevator door opens to the second floor. Stepping inside, permitting personnel occupy desks to one side, local business tax the other and in between are rows of chairs where architects, builders, contractors and others await their turn to meet with city employees.
From all corners, conversations emanate from across service desks and doorless offices, blending with the musty air as the next person stepping off the elevator momentarily captures the attention of everyone in the cramped waiting area.
That was then.
This month, personnel of multiple city departments moved across Second Street from the City Hall Annex into the new one stop shop building — a bright, light-filled contrast to the dark, dank and overcrowded space they formerly occupied.
One stop shop is an informal name for the new building. An official name is expected to be announed soon
The interior of the annex building was modified often since it opened in 1979 to accommodate the city’s growing staff, spaces opened and then were later carved up, creating offices with no privacy and some cubicles intended for one person filled with additional work stations.
“When it was last renovated, the idea was to have this open concept, and that works until it doesn't,” said Communications General Manager Jan Thornburg. “We started getting more and more employees on board and we realized that we need something else.”
That something else is a four-story, 30,725-square-foot building to house nearly all personnel involved in regulating and serving the needs of developers as well as associated functions, including public works, engineering, code enforcement and others.
At about $12 million, it’s the first new building for city employees to be built in more than three decades. Over that time, employees not able to fit into the three-story, 17,550-square-foot annex — the first floor mostly occupied by the SRQ Media Studio — have been scattered to various sites in and around downtown.
On the third floor of the annex was the entire Planning Department, which has also completed its move across the street.
“The new building has been fantastic. Planning was really crammed into the City Hall Annex,” said Planning Director Steven Cover. “We now have not only a much bigger and better space, but we have nearly the entire department under the same roof. The annex had limited meeting space, but this building has plenty of room for meetings and collaboration in our new meeting areas and conference rooms.”
The new one stop shop, at 1575 Second St., provides plenty of elbow room for collaboration in conference rooms that, in the annex, were reconfigured for offices. Not just for staff, the building is designed for greater convenience for residents and the development community alike.
“There were conference rooms that were turned into offices and we didn’t have meeting space,” said Director of Development Services Lucia Panica. “If you were to come in with plans, we didn't have anywhere for you to set them down. Now we have areas here where you can set your plans and collate them and do whatever you want.”
The first-floor customer service center consolidates payment of utility bills, formerly at the Public Works building at 12th Street, and parking citations, which were previously paid at City Hall. In-person payment is important, said Thornburg, to serve a large swath of the city’s population.
"There are still many residents who don’t pay bills online or with credit cards because of lack of access, and others who just prefer to pay in person,” Thornburg said.
The vacation of the annex will have a domino effect. The city’s procurement department is preparing a request for proposal to renovate the space for new occupants. Some departments, such as human resources and finance services, will move from their current space in City Hall into the annex. Others will relocate from remote locations.
The entire Human Resources Department and three other employees are currently housed in the city-owned Federal Building just a few blocks away.
“Those employees are going to come over," Thornburg said. “There are several employees in special events at Municipal Auditorium who are going to be coming over here. The space is going to be taken up just like that.”
But not without considerable effort. Remaining behind in the annex is all the office furniture, much of which will be reallocated as warranted, along with dingy carpet, work tables that appear homemade, blinds narrower than windows, tight hallways and a crude built-in cubbyhole stack where plans and other documents were placed for pick-up.
That's the second floor. On the third floor, planning staff would stand around a table in a lone conference area for meetings rather than go to a first-floor conference room.
“The conference room on the first floor always had mosquitoes in it,” Panica said. “It was always embarrassing.”
The new building offers spacious conference rooms on the third and fourth floors with windows overlooking downtown. On the fourth floor in the Planning Department is an additional “island” where staff can actually sit to review plans and engage in other collaborative work.
Without mosquitoes, or embarrassment.
“When you have employees who are cramped, it just makes the work that can already be tedious with a lot of pressure, especially in Lucia’s department, and it just makes it that much more challenging,” Thornburg said.
The article was updated to clarify that the city's entire Human Resources Department would be relocating to City Hall.
