City Hall project half complete
By Barbara Arntsen
Published in News on August 10, 2005 1:59 PM
Work on Goldsboro's new City Hall building is about half complete, and the project is moving along despite some delays, said a city official.
"We expect it to be finished by mid-February," said Assistant City Manager Tasha Logan."It's about 40 days behind schedule, but we're trying to catch up."
A groundbreaking ceremony for the new building was held in early January, and city officials said at the time that they expected it would take until the first of next year before it would be completed.
News-Argus/Mitch Loeber
Construction on the city hall addition, seen Tuesday.
Since its completion in 1903, City Hall has undergone some changes, but none as drastic as the current expansion.
The $5 million expansion consists of two parts: Renovation and restoration of the historic City Hall building and construction of a new 30,000-square-foot structure that will be connected to the old one by a second-floor walkway.
An existing annex will be torn down and its space used for parking.
The new building will be set back from Center Street so that the historic City Hall will continue to dominate the view from Center Street, said its designers. D.S. Simmons is the general contractor for the project.
"It's put together kind of like a puzzle," said Logan. "We're starting with the sides, and first the side facing South Center Street will be done, then we'll move on towards the Mulberry Street side."
Ms. Logan said that construction had begun on the pre-cast, or foundation part of the building.
Within the next 30 days, she said, the framing of the exterior and interior walls should be completed.
"In September, once the building is enclosed, they will start on the brick veneer," she said. "We're doing some things out of sequence so we can catch up on the time."
Ms. Logan said that the city officials anticipated some problems with finding rocks in the soil, but they didn't find anything.
"But we did have to replace sanitary sewer lines, so that was put back in the project," she said.
In October, the city will begin the furniture bidding process.
"The different departments have already worked with the design consultant to pick out colors, fabrics and tiles," Ms. Logan said. "So everything is moving ahead well."