GAINESVILLE – Now that renovations at the Gainesville Civic Center are finished, attention shifts to bringing new life and functionality to Gainesville’s historic city hall.
The chiseled marble features of the building have graced Roosevelt Square since her ceremonial dedication in 1938 by the Square’s namesake, U. S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
At Thursday’s Gainesville City Council work session City Manager Bryan Lackey asked council members to bring him names of people who might be interested in serving on a citizens’ advisory forum as decisions for the layout of the main floor are under consideration.
“What we are asking from you is …some names…we don’t want this to be just a staff decision. We want to reach out to the community…and make sure everyone is good with what we are doing with it,” Lackey said to council members.
Lackey said roughly $900,000 of SPLOST funding has been budgeted for the project.
He continued, “We have engaged Jeff Crocker with BCA Studios here in Gainesville to do an evaluation for us on what really is the possibility of what we can do.”
“They’ve done an environmental study on a building this age; there is a little bit of asbestos in the building,” Lackey said, indicating that some level of mitigation will be necessary at the onset of the project.
He explained that load-bearing walls which cannot be moved have been identified and it appears that several large, open areas on the first floor could be created. The second floor and the basement will likely remain as they are with the exception of one historic element: the old cast iron jail cell doors currently on the second floor.
“That’s one of the components that we may try to keep,” Lackey said. “I think the cell location could change but that big, heavy door is classic. We want to keep those…that’s why we want to bring in people to see how we can do that.”
Lackey said because the funding for the project is in the current year budget, work can begin immediately once the floor plan layout is determined. He hopes to see renovation work completed by the end of calendar year 2022.
