Council introduces $1.2 million bond ordinance toward cost of project.
By: Lea Kahn
Moving ahead with plans to renovate the Municipal Building, Township Council introduced a $1.2 million bond ordinance toward the cost of the project Tuesday night.
The council, which had adopted a $3.7 million ordinance for the project last year, expects to award a contract for the work in April. Bids for the job are set to be opened April 5.
The plan calls for demolishing the former Police Department headquarters in the building and constructing a 5,500-square-foot addition, said Chief Finance Officer Richard Krawczun. It also calls for renovating 19,000 square feet of the existing building.
The Police Department and Municipal Court moved into a new 42,210-square-foot facility in 2002. It is located on the north side of the municipal campus, across the parking lot from the Municipal Building. The project cost $9.3 million.
Mr. Krawczun said the Municipal Building renovation project will take about 20 to 24 months to complete, once work begins this spring. The three-phase project will take longer than usual to finish because it involves shifting municipal offices within the building on a temporary basis. There are no plans to move the offices off site while work is under way.
The original section of the Municipal Building was constructed in the 1960s and the North Wing was added several years later. The 36,000-square-foot building contains 22,000 square feet on the first floor and 14,000 square feet on the lower level. The project does not include renovations to the lower level of the building, Mr. Krawczun said.
Township officials decided to undertake the project to make more efficient and effective use of the space, Mr. Krawczun said. The goal is to make the Municipal Building more accommodating and user-friendly to the public.
The plan is to rearrange the location of the various departments so that those whose functions are complementary such as the tax assessor and the tax collector will be located adjacent to each other, he said.
Also, the mechanical systems such as the heating and air conditioning system are outdated, Mr. Krawczun said. Township officials attempted to buy used equipment to salvage parts for use in the HVAC system at the Municipal Building, he added. Parts for the system are not available.
The first phase of the three-phase project involves the demolition of the former Police Department headquarters and construction of the 5,500-square-foot addition, Mr. Krawczun said. Once that work has been completed, the Engineering Department, the Health Department and the Tax Assessor’s Office will move into the addition.
The Engineering Department will be permanently located in the addition, but the Health Department and the Tax Assessor’s Office will be located there on a temporary basis while renovation work is under way on the North Wing of the Municipal Building. The three offices the Engineering and Health departments and the Tax Assessor’s Office are presently located in the North Wing.
The second phase of the project calls for renovations to the North Wing. Once that phase has been completed, the Finance Department, the Municipal Manager’s Office and the Health Department will move into the North Wing on a permanent basis. The Finance Department and the Municipal Manager’s Office are now located in the original portion of the Municipal Building.
The third and final phase involves renovations to the original portion of the Municipal Building. In addition to the Finance Department and the Municipal Manager’s Office, it houses the Recreation Department and the Tax Collector’s Office.
While work is under way on the original portion of the building, the Tax Collector’s Office, the Recreation Department and the Municipal Clerk’s Office will be relocated to the addition on a temporary basis, he said.
Once the third phase is finished, the Tax Collector’s Office, the Tax Assessor’s Office, the Municipal Clerk’s Office and the Recreation Department will move back to the original portion of the Municipal Building, Mr. Krawczun said.
The Construction Department and the Fire Marshal’s Office, which are located in temporary trailers on the south side of the Municipal Building, will be relocated to the new addition after all of the renovations are finished, he said. Those offices have been located in the trailers since the early 1990s.