Need a building permit or a business license from City Hall?
Monday morning, they will be available at the local government’s old haunts, now refurbished.
The Marsac Building is scheduled to reopen in two phases starting on Monday after an extensive renovation that started more than a year ago. The look of the municipal building, put up as a New Deal-era schoolhouse, will surprise regular visitors, and the layout has changed substantially as well.
The innards of the building have been changed dramatically. There are new plumbing and electrical systems, an elevator has been installed to serve the handicapped and some departments will occupy different spots in the building.
“It feels like the old Marsac with the width of the walkways and the openness, but of course with new paint, new carpet, it has a great feel to it,” says Dave Gustafson, the City Hall official who oversaw the work.
The 23,000-square-foot building is reopening two months ahead of schedule. The work started in July 2008, and the staffers have occupied temporary space in Miners Hospital and a rented building on Iron Horse Drive. Gustafson says the work will cost less than the $7 million that had been set aside for the renovation, but a final price tag has not been calculated.
The layout of the redone building is:
The executive office, the mayor’s office and the Budget, Human Resources and Sustainability departments will be on the top floor.
The Building, Planning, Finance and Engineering departments will be on the main level. Officials prefer that the offices be on one floor since many of their functions are related. Previously they were spread between two floors.
The Legal and Information Technology departments will be on the bottom floor. The Park City Council chambers are on the ground floor as well.
“Their tax money was well spent to make a functional building,” Gustafson says.
The first public meeting scheduled in the building is a Park City Planning Commission meeting on Sept. 16. The City Council will hold its first meeting after the reopening the next day. Meetings during the renovation have been held in the Park City Library and Education Center.
The parking lots on the north and south sides of the building reopen on Monday. The stairs linking the building to Swede Alley are expected to reopen in late September.
The renovation had been under consideration for years. Ron Ivie, the chief building official, in the early 2000s condemned the Marsac Building, determining it was not built to withstand a substantial earthquake. Retrofitting the building to make it safer if one struck was a key part of the renovation.
Ivie says the building should remain standing during an earthquake measuring approximately 7.0 magnitude. The workers built walls of reinforced concrete. The new walls were then attached to the existing ones. The walls had been made of masonry put over a steel frame. They were not reinforced. The building, though, has retained its historic look.
“It’s not going to fall down. That’s what I like better,” Ivie says.
There has been just scattered interest from regular Parkites as the renovation has been underway, and there was limited public interest during the planning stages. It is the most extensive renovation of the building since the school was turned into the municipal offices in 1983.
Some of the other highlights of the redone Marsac Building include:
The addition of an elevator, which makes the building more accessible to the handicapped. The elevator is on the north side of the building. The ramps that had served as the connections between the floors have been removed. A stairwell has also been built.
The placement of two plasma televisions in the City Council chambers. They will be mounted on the walls and be directed toward the audience seating.
Lights that turn on and off based on whether sensors detect someone in a room. Light fixtures, meanwhile, will dim themselves as sunlight enters a room. Both of the upgrades are meant to reduce the energy used by City Hall, one of the goals of the work.
New paint and new carpet.
“The workmanship, the details of the building, exceeded my expectations,” Gustafson says.
Move-in dates
The Marsac Building will reopen in two phases starting on Monday.
On Monday, the following departments will open in their new space in the Marsac Building:
Building
Planning
Finance
Engineering
Legal
Information Technology
On Monday, Sept. 14, the following departments will open in their new space:
Executive, including the mayor
Human Resources
Budget
Sustainability
For more information about the reopening of the Marsac Building, call City Hall at 615-5001.