Town Hall gets an overhaul

The finance department and the utility billing desk at Town Hall are undergoing a remodeling project. The work, which began today, is expected to be finished by the end of September.

The aim of the project, which was budged for $370,000 and awarded in the amount of $295,208, is to create a more efficient, centralized Town Hall reception area for guest information and utility payment services.

It is expected that there will be additional costs for items not factored into the construction budget, such as furniture, fixtures, and equipment, access control for the east and west Town Hall entrance doors near the new customer service windows, and security cameras. According to Kate Miller, the public information officer for the Town, the original project budget will help cover these additional costs.

The project will be completed in phases, allowing public access to the old reception area until the new reception area is operable. There will be no interruption of utility customer services during the project, and no impacts to the Police Department reception area.

The public restrooms in the 90-year-old Town Hall building which used to be a school building, were renovated over several months this past winter. During the remodeling process, the building lost its electricity and phone service, and employees worked from home for a day until the problem was resolved.

In investigating the outages an electrical contractor determined that the electric capacity in Town Hall was overloaded beyond its capacity. Two of the suspected culprits were the use of space heaters during an especially cold week and power tools used by the remodeling contractor.

One area architect contacted the Estes Valley Voice with concerns that building permits had not been issued for the restroom remodeling project. Contacted at the time for a comment, Miller told the Estes Valley Voice, “the Town Hall restroom upgrade plans were reviewed by the Building Division which determined that no permits were required. This would have been the same outcome for a private party doing the same project.”