NEW CITY HALL SHOWN TO PUBLIC
Platte City’s new City Hall and police station was shown off to the public at an open house last Wednesday, Nov. 1.
About 100 members of the public took the tour at the open house event held at the new facility located at 224 Marshall Road.
“Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, including some nice comments from an area resident who requires wheelchair accommodations. He appreciated the city’s efforts to ensure accessibility in our new facility for persons of all abilities,” said Marji Gehr, city administrator.
The $7.2 million project will be occupied by city offices beginning on Monday, Nov. 13, city officials say.
Gehr said moving activities from the current City Hall on Main Street have been happening daily since the open house and are staggered to limit disruptions to support public services. City Hall will be closed on Nov. 9 for moving activities, and will also be closed on Friday, Nov. 10 in observance of Veterans Day.
Landscaping work will continue at the new City Hall in the coming weeks, with the planting of a new Mayor’s Christmas tree and landscape areas at the entrance of the facility. Gehr said a new mailbox, utility drop box and meeting notification board will be installed near the former pharmacy drive-thru lane near the entrance to the city’s property at the Marshall Road location.
Design for a new monument sign at the entrance will begin in the coming weeks, Gehr said.
“As we move into the new year, staff will begin coordinating a schedule of indoor and outdoor art displays for the public to enjoy at the new facility,” she added.
First meetings of city aldermen committees were held at the new City Hall on Monday night this week, and another round of committee meetings was set for Tuesday evening. No members of the public attended the Monday night committee meetings.
Construction of the 16,000 square foot building was paid for with $3.2 million in new general obligation bonds that were approved by city voters in 2018, and the remainder with city fund balances, primarily from the capital improvement fund and general fund reserves.
The main floor features nearly 10,000 square feet and the lower level features about 6,000 square feet. All public spaces are on the main floor, while police functions and storage are featured on the lower floor.
The building is expected to have a lifespan of about 60-75 years, city officials have previously told The Landmark.
The new City Hall is designed to provide one-stop customer service in the front lobby for all city functions, including police, public works, finance department, cemetery administration, parks and recreation, building permits and development.
The room that will house board meetings is also on the main floor. The board chambers include a separate closed session conference room that will allow the public to remain in the board chambers in the event of a closed session while board members move to the closed session area, which is the opposite of the current City Hall on Main Street.
The new building includes a conference room off of the board meeting area that is also built as a certified storm shelter large enough to hold anyone attending a board meeting, in the event of a storm situation.
Also included is space for police locker rooms and administrative spaces to allow the police department to grow. As of June, there were 12 sworn officers in the Platte City Police Department. The space in the new building is constructed to allow for an eventual department size of 24 officers.
The administrative section of the building includes space for up to four additional administrative employees if eventually needed, and 800 sq. ft. of unfinished storage/multi-purpose space on the lower level.
Additional space for evidence processing, packing and secure storage in the police department is featured. The main city archives are located in a sprinkled, fire-resistant room.
The new building also includes an emergency generator, a feature missing from the current City Hall and from the current police station on Main Street.
Planning for the potential addition of electric city-owned vehicles down the line, the building’s electrical system and generator size, switchgear and electrical panels are large enough to support the future installation of up to five Tier 3 fast electric vehicle charging stations and eight Tier 1 low speed electric vehicle charging stations, city officials told The Landmark recently.
Conduit for the charging stations–which will be located on the back side of the building–has also been installed to prevent the need to tear up the parking lot when the charging stations are added in the future.
City officials have indicated the current City Hall at Fourth and Main will eventually become a community room to be used by the city as a headquarters for downtown events, among other potential uses. Grant money from a county parks grant will help with future improvements to that building.
Gehr said the publication for bids to renovate the 400 Main Street building into a downtown community room will be released in early 2024.
Former city administrator DJ Gehrt, who retired effective June 30, told The Landmark last summer that the city was able to provide additional project funds for the new City Hall from its existing fund balances because it had been gradually increasing those balances over the past 10 years, knowing that there would be a need for major capital improvements in city buildings, parks and east side development.
Gehrt said although all major operating funds have a share of the City Hall/police station, the majority of the project’s $4 million pay-as-you-go funding came from the city’s capital improvement fund (CIP) balance and from the general fund balance.
In June, Gehrt said the city’s financial reserves were sufficient that the general fund will still have over 150% of annual expenditures in fund balance and the CIP fund will still have over 100% of annual revenue in its fund balance. Gehrt explained that the city had built up enough financial flexibility that the increased “pay as you go amount” was available in the fund balances.