Renovation work is underway on the first floor of Bradford City Hall — upgrades to the bathrooms have begun and an overhaul of the treasurer’s office and installation of a security system are next on the list.
City council put the renovation work up for bid in May, and the process has started with moving the treasurer’s office to a room across the hall.
“There’ll be new carpet, paint, walls constructed,” city administrator Teri Cannon told The Era on Friday. “As it is has been, the customers come in the front door, walk in and they’re right at a counter. We’re actually going to have an area where the office will be partitioned off and the girls will have a sliding glass window so they can wait on people. There will still be a counter there, but this will be more secure.”
Cannon said there will be a new entrance to the treasurer’s office as well, but as this work is being done, the office has been moved to a smaller room across the hall. “It’s a temporary inconvenience for a permanent improvement,” she stated.
Currently, the contractor, Hennard Construction, is renovating three bathrooms, making them Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant, according to Cannon.
A change-order approved at the city council meeting Tuesday added $6,120 to the cost, covering the addition of new bathroom fixtures and countertops, new carpet and new hardware for two doors.
Cannon said, looking back through the bid specification, she realized new fixtures had been left out and she decided to include them because it would be strange to put in new bathrooms with the old fixtures.
“The countertops came to us by the contractor,” she told The Era. “He felt that what was in the first specs (wouldn’t last as long), he thought we’d get more life out of these other ones and I had to agree with him.
“Laminate starts to peel, and these will hopefully last the next 20 or 30 years — much more durable,” Cannon explained. “The doors were also left out of the bids, so we just did the change-order to cover that.”
With the change-order, the total cost of the project comes to $129,920. The project will be funded through the city’s general obligation bond.
“We’re still hoping to raise money privately to repay that portion of the bond,” Bradford City Mayor Tom Riel said.
The project will also entail the installation of a security camera system to further improve safety in the building, according to Riel.
“This has been in the planning stages for several years, and it’s the first major upgrade to the first floor of City Hall since 1962 when the city hall offices moved into the building from across the street,” Riel said. “The treasurer’s office was very outdated and not as secure as it should be for the type of world we live in today. Things have certainly changed in 54 years.
“It will make it much more modern and more secure not just for the folks in the treasurer’s office but for the rest of City Hall, yet it will still be accessible to the public,” Riel added.
Cannon noted that at some point during the renovations, the front entrance into the building will be closed off to the public to allow for the work to take place.
“We’ll have to reroute people to the back door,” she said. “They’ll be putting the new entrance into the treasurer’s office and some work in the vestibule area of the first floor as well. That portion will likely happen prior to the security, it has to be done first, so I would look for that to happen very soon.”
Cannon related she would be meeting with the contractor soon to put together a timetable for the rest of the renovation work. She anticipates the work to take three to four months, but admits it could go longer if the contractor runs into any problems.
“It will depend on what they run into, but I don’t anticipate they run into anything big in the treasurer’s office,” Cannon explained. “They ran into a few things in the bathrooms because they’re so old, but they’re tackling those issues.”
Overall, city workers are excited about the changes.
“I think we’ve been looking forward to having some updates in our building for a long time,” said Cannon. “I think everyone is looking forward to having some fresh new offices.
“We did the third floor last year and now the first floor this year, and we’re hoping to do a bit of a facelift on the second floor sometime next year,” she added, explaining that area of the building could receive a new coat of paint, carpeting, some ceiling work and possible fixture replacements.
Last year, the third floor city chambers in city hall underwent an extensive renovation, including drop ceilings, new lighting and new carpeting, as well as a rebuilt city council table.
