Public Works facility open house to feature images of new building

City Hall on Tuesday unveiled a picture of what the city's new Public Works Facility will look like once it is in place in 2014.

The image comes as city officials prepare to hold an open house on Wednesday, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., on the second floor of the existing Public Works Facility, 1201 Sixth St. SW, to talk about the city's redevelopment plans for the new building.

In December, the City Council voted 8-0 to demolish the existing building, which took on flood water in 2008 and which once was home to a crane manufacturing plant, and to replace it with a new, $35 million building.

The new building will go up at the same site, only closer to and facing 15th Avenue SW. City employees will stay in the existing building until the new one is in place.

The new building won council support, in part, because it will house in one facility what is now spread over 10 facilities.

The council also concluded that the old crane plant, with multiple support posts, is no longer an efficient place to store and service the city's fleet of large Public Works Department vehicles.

In December, Dave Zahradnik, the project architect for Neumann Monson Architects of Iowa City, said the city annually will ave 13,000 work hours and $845,000 by building an open, efficient area so workers don't waste 10 to 15 minutes a day maneuvering equipment around the posts in the current building.

The city has said it will have $17 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster funds and a state I-JOBS grant of $5 million to help pay for the new building. Mayor Ron Corbett has said the city may also use revenue from the city's local-option sales tax as it has done in the construction of the city's new library and will use to build the city's new animal shelter on the campus of Kirkwood Community College. The library and shelter, like the Public Works Building, were hit by the 2008 flood.

In demolishing the existing building, city officials are studying to see if the building's front corner can be saved and used in some fashion in the new building.

Cassie Willis, spokeswoman for the city, on Tuesday said the Wednesday evening open house is designed for both the general public and for neighbors who live around the Public Works Facility. Those neighbors have all received letters of invitation.

Those who attend the event will be asked to submit ideas for a name for the new building.