The old police building is getting a makeover before it makes
its debut as a more user-friendly city hall annex.
Jennie Tezak Special to the Dispatch
Gilroy – The old police building is getting a makeover before it makes its debut as a more user-friendly city hall annex.
Facilities and Parks Development Manager Bill Headley said the city plans to use the basic floor plan of the Rosanna Street building and perform modest upgrades, including modifications to the lobby.
“We are hoping that sometime next fall we can complete the improvements,” Headley said. “In the future we plan to do a major remodeling of city hall and of the annex but that will be many years out.”
Headley said a project team consisting of representatives from two city departments and Hemingway and Stock Architects has been assembled.
“We’ve been working with architects for the last two months and looking at layout of floor plan and the site issues and how we will reutilize everything and make it work,” Headley said.
The city’s Community Services Division and the Fire Department command staff will move into the annex.
“We’ll be reporting on what the architect’s design team estimate will be and we’ll start tenant improvement work by end of year,” Headley said.
The building’s jail will house city business and legal records, or retention records, which have recently bounced around among several different locations.
“It will be the perfect home for our future retention records that we need to retain and the active ones that we need to keep,” Headley said.
Headley said that there will be a reshuffle of cramped spaces at city hall to then make a reorganization of city hall for smoother customer service.
“The annex is a perfectly good public building but has been outgrown and we have definite need for space as far as city hall is concerned,” Headley said.
A reorganization of city hall will take place at the end of 2008 or the start of 2009.
Headley said the project has its share of challenges.
“The challenge is that we have a low budget,” he said. “We also have a floor plan that was designed for a police station which will have to be adapted for other public office spaces.”
The building will have outside parking spaces and security gates nearby. Headley said he expects far more visitors in the future.
“We anticipate a high volume of public visitors to the city hall annex,” he said.
The annex will not require seismic retrofits.
“We’re not changing the floor plan and not adding space to the building, so there are not enough modifications to trigger seismic upgrades,”.
The costs of the project are still unknown as the layout is being finalized.
