New furniture has arrived and city workers are moving it into the new Smithfield City office building. Work will continue over the weekend and with luck the new offices will open Tuesday. It’s been a long time coming since the council started talking about a new building eight years ago. With ups and downs along the way the process is one of those good news, bad news stories.

The Bad News

First the Bad News. The building is late. Moving day was supposed to be in February. There were personnel and construction issues. Onyx Construction, general contractor for the project, brought in Ken Stuart to take over as project superintendent. Some of the work was torn down and redone. And the project schedule revised to get the work done and finish the building.

“I have dealt with quite a few municipalities and with any city there are obviously politics involved,” said Blake Knight, president of Onyx Construction. “(Smithfield’s city leaders) have been very, very good to work with, very fair and when we have been wrong they have been very candid about telling us that we were wrong.”

City Manager Jim Gass echoed these feelings in talking about the delays. “(Onyx) has been real responsive after we had our initial problems back in December,” said Gass. “They were very responsive to trying to complete the project as quickly as they can and correct the mistakes that they had and get us in here as quickly as possible.”

Gass said that Stuart made “a huge difference, far more organized, knew exactly what was going on and had a much better relationship with the sub-contractors. He has been good.”

Knight did not wish to dwell on the reasons for the delays. Instead, he wanted to focus on getting the project finished correctly. “We have, to date, a building that is built per specifications,” said Knight. “Yes, there were some issues along the way and we discovered and resolved them and built the building per the specs.”

There are of course consequences when dealing with these delays. The city has a performance bond on the project and has the choice to charge Onyx up to $500 a day for the delays. “We could go back to the 27th of April,” said Gass. “It will be up to the council to see what they want to do.”

The Good News

The Good News — it’s almost done. The city is moving in. The structure more than triples the space of the old city offices. It will be a great building for the city. Years of use should erase a few months of frustration.

The attractive two-story building sits prominently on Main Street. Nearly every office, hallway and conference room has unobstructed views of Main Street, Smithfield and the mountains.

“I just love this setting and the design of the building,” said Knight. “I have to give Nexus (Architects) a lot of credit for the aesthetics of the building and how it fits into downtown Smithfield. I am very impressed.”

Knight said the city offices will be one of their portfolio projects. “It has been a privilege for all of us to even be associated with the project,” added Knight.

It is a good deal for the city, too. “We got unbelievable financing for this,” said Gass. “We are going to spend $1.8 million and a little over half of it is a grant and the balance of it is a twenty five year loan at about 2.5 percent interest. We are paying about $60,000 a year which is really, really good for 15,000 square feet.”

The Building

The old city offices were 5,000 square feet total with the police department using about 2,000 square feet and all the city offices squeezed into 3,000 square feet. Each of the three levels in the new building are about 5,000 square feet for a total of 15,000 square feet. This is real room for the city’s future growth.

On the main floor is the council chamber. “I love this room,” said Gass. “Opposed to having twenty seats we will have ninety seats in here for the public.”

And unlike the current council room, it won’t need a space heater to keep it warm in the winter. There will be a projector that drops down from the ceiling and a large screen that drops down behind the council. The council will have monitors to see what’s being projected on the screen.

It’s also going to be used for the courtroom. One portion of the stand raises higher for the judge to sit. A whole secured court area exists off to the right of the main room. The judge will have an office, there will be a jury/conference room, a private attorney/client room plus the court clerks office.

The main floor has a beautiful reception area and curved entryway. There is another conference room and several offices for city personnel.

Upstairs is a wall of windows in the main hall with a spectacular view of the mountains. Offices for utilities, inspector, engineer, recorder. The mayor will have his own office instead of working from an old supply closet. There are several conference rooms upstairs.

The new space gives the city options they never had before but really needed. For example, there is a cemetery office. In the old offices “if someone in a family dies, they need to come in and buy a plot or get information,” explained Gass. “They are in tears because of what just happened and the only place they can conduct business is right in the office there, so anyone that comes in the offices can see them.”

The new cemetery office is a place where families can make these difficult arrangements in private. It will also house all the cemetery records.

Additionally there is a mail room, storage rooms and a nice break room with a mountain view. The basement is a wide-open 5,000 square feet of storage.

The Future

There is no doubt that the process of construction is never easy. However, once a project is done and done well like this building, the process is forgotten and the building is remembered. Smithfield is growing and this new city hall will serve the citizens for decades to come.