News

City begins plans for the new city hall

By Scott Wagar

12/09/2014

With the city council voting in favor of moving the city office to a new location, the members of the city’s property committee have started to prepare for renovations by hiring a planner to do some preliminary work concerning the city’s strategy in what they want in their newly acquired building.

Last month, at the November city council meeting, the council voted in favor of moving out of the Armory and into the State Bank of Bottineau’s building on Thompson Street once the bank moves to its new location on Highway 5. 

HISTORY

The move has been somewhat unsettling for certain members of the council, which began when the State Bank’s board members offered their building to the city at no cost as they made plans to move to the highway. With the offer, the council toured the building and made the decision to accept the building from the State Bank. At that time, the city placed $100,000 into a fund to assist them with the renovations it would have to make in turning the structure from a bank into a city hall. 

Shortly after this decision, Launee Hamnes and Cathy Claeys were appointed to the city council over two seats that were left open from the city election. Once in office, Claeys and Hamnes requested that the council take a second look at moving to the State Bank building. Claeys stated that she had concerns about the building’s structural integrity, hazards that come with an older building, its layout and age. She added that with the $100,000 placed aside for the building, the council should make well thought out plans and decisions on how the money should be spent.

There were also discussions about what would happen to the Armory if city hall left the structure. Discussion included would the city have two buildings to maintain; how would it affect the city financially by moving to a new building; where would the city’s residents go in a tornado because the Armory is the only shelter in Bottineau; and what would happen to the city’s National Guard Unit that is housed at the Armory.   

The council agreed to go back into discussions over the bank building and toured the structure one more time. At the November city council meeting, the council voted 5 to 2 in favor of moving to the State Bank building. Claeys and Alderman Harley Getzlaff voted against the motion because they felt more discussion should go into the motion before a vote, and Hamnes was absent from meeting due to illness and didn’t vote.

PLANNER
 
With the vote finalized, the city’s property committee (made up of Launee Hamnes, Diane Lorenz and Greg Bernstein) held a meeting with Mayor Ben Aufforth and City Auditor Penny Nostdahl, where Hamnes, the chair of committee, called the meeting to order and made a conference call to Carla Gunderson of Office Solutions in Minneapolis to discuss with Gunderson the possibility of her being hired to design the renovation plans that will need to take place at the State Bank building.

The property committee and Gunderson (who is originally from Rugby) came to an agreement that Gunderson would send samples on space planning to the council for the bank building at a cost of the first hour charge being free and $50 per hour after the first hour. 

Once the plans are studied by the city, a decision will be made to hire Office Solutions as their planner.

If any renovations need to take place which concerns interior rehabilitation then the city will have to hire an architect and structural engineer.