City Hall West will get an $8 million facelift

Anaheim’s 16-year-old building needs renovation, and office’s need furniture and communications equipment, officials say.

By Adam Townsend
The Orange County Register

The city will spend more than $8 million to refurbish its public utilities Department in the 11 story City Hall West.  The upgrades are slated to be finished in March 2009.
Officials say the improvements and furniture will make the building “green” using recycled materials and allowing the structure to use about 30% less water and electricity.
Public Utilities director Marcie Edwards said doing the work all at once would be cheaper than doing it in phases.
The improvements include $1.2 million in elevator repairs; staff members say the elevator door sensors are out of whack, causing them to occasionally shut on riders, among other problems.
These $6.38 million renovation contract, approved by a 4 to 1 City Council vote Tuesday, was awarded to Great West Contractors.
Councilman Harry Sidhu said it was too much to spend all at once. He said “it looks bad” when the council voted just last month to raise electric rates.
“Sixteen years we’ve lived, folks,” He said “Another couple of years won’t hurt.”
Mayor Curt Pringle countered that maintenance on the building has been deferred too long in an attempt to keep utility charges static in the face of rising fuel prices.
“There hasn’t been a rate increase over the last seven years, and the cost of power went up,” he said. “We probably deferred maintenance longer than we should have.”
The council, in a unanimous vote, also awarded a $1.53 million contract to Fullmer Contract to provide all new ergonomic, modular furniture for the building.
Mike Ebbing, spokesman for the Public Utilities Department, said the furniture would replace the 1970s era furniture and will contain non-toxic recycled materials.
The furniture will allow natural light through the windows to cut down on electricity use.  Desks will be wired with network cable to link up the buildings and internal communication system, which will also be updated with the renovations.
  “The modular furniture will support computer intensive operations as well as improved functionality, efficiency of space and changes in work practices, largely of our engineering staff,” Ebbing  said in an e-mail interview.
Staff reports say the furniture will last about 15 years and will come with a maintenance agreement.  The report says cheaper retail furniture is manufactured using noxious chemicals and would last only about three years.  Also the city hopes the ergonomic furniture will cut down on repetitive stress injury cases.