Clear of asbestos, crews make offices in City Hall Annex

By John Howell
Posted 2/9/16

The City Council will get its own office and a conference room. The personnel department will get a view of Station One and Apponaug Circulator traffic plus plenty of sky and maybe a glimpse of …

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Clear of asbestos, crews make offices in City Hall Annex

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The City Council will get its own office and a conference room. The personnel department will get a view of Station One and Apponaug Circulator traffic plus plenty of sky and maybe a glimpse of Gorton Pond. There will be offices for the city’s MIS (management information system) staff and what has some municipal employees especially excited, a conference room large enough to conduct commission and board hearings without being lost in Council Chambers in City Hall.

All of this is in the process of coming together on the second floor of the City Hall Annex in space once predominantly occupied by Fire Station One and Fire Department headquarters.

It’s been nine years since the Fire Department moved out to the new Station One next to the Police Station. The second floor annex offices have been vacant ever since and when the decision was made to re-purpose them; it was a lot longer before the job of reconstruction could begin. The problem explains David Picozzi, director of the Department of Public Works, was the flooring. The floor was actually the roof of the former fire station before a second story was added. It was laden with asbestos and needed to be removed. A new floor then had to be poured. That work, which took a good part of last year to do, has been completed.

Now, city crews are doing the build out based on plans drafted by Trish Reynolds in the Planning Department.

“My guys came in and threw this up in no time,” Picozzi said during a recent tour of the light-filled area now divided up by metal studs demarcating rooms and corridors. The erection of drywall won’t start until computer wiring and fire alarm, both of which is being done by outside contractors, are completed. The fire alarm work will bring the building under code.

“The building never met code,” said Picozzi.

So far Picozzi has been able to pay for materials for the job out of his building maintenance budget. An additional appropriation may be required when it gets to carpeting, doors, electrical wiring and furniture. What remained throughout the project was the heart to the city’s management information system. The room housing the city’s computer server was untouched and operated throughout the demolition and reconstruction. As for the work being done by city crews from Parks and Recreation, Buildings and Highway, Picozzi can only guess how many tens of thousands of dollars they’re saving the taxpayer. Picozzi believes the job will be done and new offices ready for use in mid-April. His one caveat is the weather.

If Mother Nature delivers snow, well, then, many of the men who were putting up studs last week and will be erecting drywall soon, will be plowing.

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