The construction of a new building to house the city’s administrative department is feasible and the details are being ironed out, acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry-Munroe says.
During the consideration of the 2019 budget estimates, Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan announced that $75 million will be allocated to the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown to construct a building that will house staff currently occupying the dilapidated City Hall building, which is expected to undergo renovation.
In an interview with Stabroek News, Harry-Munroe explained that with City Hall’s unstable financial status, they are unable to rent a building to house staff.
“Council is financially strapped and to rent a building, it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent one in the city. We can use the money and construct our own building,” she said.
She explained further that the construction of the building is a permanent solution and the council had been planning to construct a building to house administrative staff over the past two decades.
“About 23 years ago, there has been this plan to construct an administrative building. Former City Engineer Cephas James would have given us a proposal for the building and they had started the construction of the foundation but since then, we would not have done any other construction,” Harry- Munroe disclosed.
The building, which will be located behind the Mayor’s office, will house not only the administrative arm of the council but also the City Treasury department.
In terms of the current building, Harry-Munroe disclosed that when the restoration is completed, they are “toying with the ideas of moving the archives here and open a library with a documentation centre.”
Asked if the construction of the additional building will affect the aesthetics of the compound, the acting town clerk responded in the negative. She pointed out that the City Hall building “is a historic building and not the compound. In the past, the identified location had a fire station and a building to house the public health department.”
Presently, Harry-Munroe said, the council is ironing out the details of the project with the Ministry of Communities.
Stabroek News had reported in July that Chief City Engineer Colvern Venture had advised the council that they move within five months. Venture had noted that while the building can be used for the next five months, they would need to conduct steady assessments of its deterioration.
“I would say we could operate until the end of this year but we will have to continue to monitor the deterioration on the third floor. We have further deterioration on the roof of this building and as such, we will have to do an inspection… this floor and the ground (floor) can be occupied but there will be discomfort because of the leakages,” he said.
Venture also begged the council to set aside money to extend the building that houses the Mayor’s office to allow it to accommodate additional offices and chambers for statutory meetings.
“We would have to find a place to have the offices be relocated and also to hold meetings. We need to set aside the necessary funds for the admin building to be constructed rather than to rent, which is going to be costly,” the Engineer advised.
In late May, Stabroek News reported that 90 per cent of the materials which were used to construct City Hall over 100 years ago, can be reused during the restoration. The suggestion was made by one of the consultants, Ed Morton, who worked on the report.
During a workshop, Morton and Francis Maude, the Specialist Conservation Architect, had said that the building was “structurally sound” but 10 per cent would need to be restored. Both Morton and Maude had pointed out that water damage was one of the major factors for the current state of the building and its continuous decay.
The cost to restore the historic City Hall building has been pegged at US$4.3 million according to the Comprehensive Restoration and Sustainable Conservation Management Plan of City Hall. The plan, funded by the European Union at a cost of $64 million, was compiled by Euronet Consulting of which Morton and Maude were a part.
The construction of the administrative building will be done under the Mayorship of Ubraj Narine, who takes office on January 1.
The proposed site behind the Mayor’s office for the construction of the administrative building.
Saved in pictures as city hall proposed.
