After safety concerns were raised about City Hall’s structure, Tuesday’s Coral Gables commission meeting was held in the city’s police & fire conference meeting room as the city manager looks for a single place to move all the offices early next year and evacuate city hall – a step the mayor objects to. Under further investigation, it was discovered that the structural columns outside of city hall right underneath the commission chambers and the inside near the city manager and attorney’s offices and in the conference room needed additional shoring up as well, said José “Joe” Gómez, Coral Gables’ assistant city manager for operations and infrastructure. Repairs are currently being done, he said, but the column where the conference room is, which goes all the way up to the commission’s offices, had some bending. That particular column can’t be installed until commission offices are vacated. “So, to err on the side of caution, it was better not to be able to load the commission chambers,” Mr. Gómez explained. “Therefore, remove the load by not having the commission meetings there.” There are two issues, added City Manager Amos Rojas Jr., “the structural issues that they’re dealing with, and the experts are dealing with, and then you have the environmental issue as they’re doing their work inside City Hall. You have the dust and all those issues that develop. Our idea is to try to locate a facility where we can house all the offices that currently exist in City Hall in one place, where the residents can go to one location and they have the mayor’s office, vice mayor’s office, the city attorney’s office, my office, and so on. So, we’re in the process of doing that.” The immediate repairs will take some time, he said. “We’re looking at maybe January, towards the end of January, hopefully by February, to be able to relocate so that the work can be done at City Hall, whatever needs to be done, from the engineering perspective.” But once the building is shored up it will be habitable, Mayor Vince Lago said he had confirmed with staff and the project engineer Douglas Wood. “We do not need to leave City Hall. What you’re seeing here is the theater of politics,” he said. “The commission prior to this one decided to take the money [City Hall restoration funds] and use it for Phillips Park” he said. “The budget is there. We had money for City Hall, and now we need different options in regard to how to address the issue. This has not been abandoned. This is a very complex project and historically significant building, where they’ve been working on it for a long time. If we abandon this building right now, we will not come back to this building, probably for four years.” It will take almost two years to hire a qualified architect and several more months to get a request for quotation for a contractor and permits before even starting construction, he said. “Shoring is not an inhibitor to being inside the building. You can work around the shore,” the mayor said. “In an election year, in a moment where people need to use City Hall, there’s no reason to get rid of the entire commission floor. There’s no reason to move the city attorney. There’s no reason to move the city clerk. There’s no reason to move the city manager’s office.” “This is something that we’ve done for years,” Mr. Lago continued. “I’ve worked around shoring for years. Yeah, it’s a little uncomfortable at certain times, but you isolate those areas, and you move on. The building is safe. This building is safe, and multiple engineers who I’ve spoken to have told me, that even if the building was not shored, it would be safe because it’s not a catastrophe, and I’ve done my homework on that issue.” “So shoring is in place. It took two days to put the shoring in. It’ll probably take another three or four days to do the pending shoring that’s there, clean up the area, and we can start working again in the building, but we have a lot of work to do before we can even consider construction. Construction is two years away from here,” the mayor said. But some folks are allergic to mold and dust, Mr. Rojas replied to the mayor. “So, the question for staff is, do you want to work in a building? Let’s say it’s safe, whatever the engineers say. Do you want to work in a building that’s going to be under construction? Are roof materials going to be moved around while you’re working there every day? That’s the question.” Once real demolition and construction starts, it’s when officials and staff should vacant the building, said the mayor, who added that he will still continue to use his office on a regular basis at city hall. “You don’t even have plans yet. You don’t even have engineering drawings done. You haven’t even selected an architect. You haven’t even gone to the market to select an architect, so I would love to see the RFQ. When did you do that?” Mr. Lago asked the city manager. “I would love to have this information, but since the manager won’t meet with me, I don’t have that information.” “City employees will not go back in the building unless the environmental conditions are met where it’s safe for them to work, period,” Mr. Rojas replied. “Unless this commission directs me to do so, I will not put them back to work there. If you want to work there, that’s fine. My suggestion would be, let’s take care and make sure that we have no environmental issues. There are some members of this commission that are very sensitive to those issues. The bottom line is this, mayor, I am not putting a city employee back to work there until I am comfortable that there are no environmental issues for our employees unless this commission directs me.” Related Posts:Piece by piece, historic city hall restoredCoral Gables elected officials getting raises of 53% and upCoral Gables shuns search for manager, hires sole candidateCoral Gables hiring 31 to staff its country clubUpdated contract for a new City of Miami…The post Coral Gables manager vows to evacuate city hall for safety appeared first on Miami Today.