Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The City of Sweet Home opened for business in its new City Hall, 3225 Main St., Monday morning, Aug. 12.
Two staff members kept the old City Hall, 1140 12th Ave., open Friday as employees finished moving and began settling into their new offices on Main Street.
Most city staff spent last week moving, said City Manager Ray Towry. Mainly, they moved non-essential materials and furniture.
“The people and the essentials started to move yesterday,” Towry said Friday.
Public Works did all the “heavy lifting,” he said. Primarily, Dominic Valloni, Kevin Mackinson and James Brown spent the week helping, and on Thursday, City Hall and Public Works staff were all hands on deck to bring the last of the old City Hall to the new City Hall.
“It probably was as good as it could have (been),” Towry said of the move. Furniture and boxes were tagged for their different areas to help the movers.
The building was ready to go earlier this summer, but getting a fiber optic line and Internet connected to the new City Hall took longer.
Internet remained the big holdup last week, Towry said, but it was up and running by about 3 p.m. Friday.
“CenturyLink came through,” Towry said. “The local guys (John Fassler and Ray Pettner) went above and beyond to cover for the national guys, who dropped the ball, literally picking up a fumble.”
While the city was told it would take additional time to get equipment, the local technicians went to get it and installed it.
That meant the city could open for business Monday morning at the new location. As of Monday, the city is offering no service at the old City Hall.
Towry was pleased with the remodeling project that turned the former Sweet Home Ranger District Office into City Hall.
“It’s going to represent us as a professional organization and as a community that’s progressive and forward thinking,” Towry said. “We’ve got a great building and a park – and a building with room to grow, a building that can expand with our needs over the next 75 years.”
The last 10 to 20 years, the city has been “making do,” with customers forced to go downstairs and back upstairs to interact with related functions, like planning and building, Towry said. The old City Hall was not a good environment, he said, with peeling plaster and the after-effects of flooding in the basement in 1996.
That flooding prompted the city to move the Police Department out of the basement into a modular building behind City Hall and then into a new building at 1950 Main St.
The new facility still needs some touching up and landscaping, Towry said, and the city still needs to develop the park on the east side of the building a little more.
Furniture for the new lobby will arrive after the grand opening, which is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 23. The open house ends at 3 p.m. The public is invited to attend. Towry said the city has invited elected officials from all over the area.
During the grand opening, the city will have a few introductions, ribbon cutting ceremony, light refreshments and tours of the new facility, Towry said. SHOCASE will talk about its work as it kicks off the first of rotating art exhibits in the lobby, which will serve as an art gallery for the community.
The city purchased the building in July 2016 for $750,000. The building was constructed in 1989 to serve as the Sweet Home Ranger District Office. The city spent less than $1.2 million designing and remodeling the building for use as a new City Hall.