Two city-owned buildings will be demolished to convert the property into a staging point for the planned renovations at City Hall, which is located just north of the property.
Facilities Services Manager Chris Dodd said the demolition process will take around a week and a half. During that time, the house and duplex located at the corner of 2nd Street and 3rd Avenue will be torn down, and the debris cleared away and recycled.
The properties were originally purchased by the city as part of their plans to expand City Hall. The expansion, however, did not occur, and with the police department already moved into the new Kirkland Justice Center, there is adequate space in City Hall to move the Parks Department Administrative Offices, currently located on Market Street, back into City Hall once renovations are finished. The Parks Department has been at that location since 2002.
“The current City Hall is cramped at best,” Dodd said. “It allows staff to have just better and more efficient working environment.”
The city decided to demolish the buildings rather than rent them when they determined it would be too costly to repair. The house, Dodd said, requires a new plumbing system, and the duplex suffers from water damage.
“It made sense in that the amount of money that was needed to repair those facilities was substantial,” he said. “And to be the least disruptive during construction, we needed a place to stage and park construction workers that didn’t impact the community around us.”
The City Hall renovation will include improvements to the HVAC system, roof repairs and maintenance projects. A centralized customer counter area and, in particular, a new consolidated Development Services Counter, will be created.
“The idea is to have key staff members come to you,” Dodd said. “So if you have a development question and you need a planner and engineer, then those people come to you instead of you migrating from counter to counter.”
The City Council Chamber, which Dodd said has not been renovated since 1985, will also see an upgrade in its visual and audio systems, in addition to flattening the floor and opening up more space.
Construction impacts to the neighborhood should be minimal since most of the work will take place on the roof and within interior spaces, according to the city.
The renovation project is budgeted at $10 million, according to Dodd, and a general contract bid for the renovation work is expected to be put out sometime this summer.
While no long-term plans have been made for the south property, there has been discussion about turning it into a public parking lot in order to meet demand for parking in downtown.
