Norfolk Daily News

Friday – January 18, 2008

Your View

About city offices
NORFOLK — I can appreciate the fact that the City of Norfolk has outgrown its current facilities. Most of those offices are headquartered in the city auditorium — a facility that my grandfather built in the depression years of 1939-40.

The city did not outgrow this in a month or a year or five years. A new facility will take several months to properly design and 6-12 additional months to construct or renovate what is designed. Given these time elements and the importance of the image and use of the facility, it would seem prudent to take considerable time to look at all of the options and their long- term ramifications.

In regard to First Christian Church, I understand the thoughts are that the city could save the citizens some money with this option. I applaud the fact that this consideration was part of the analysis. To me, that option raises some important issues that bear exploring.

At a time when the city is preparing to spend $1 million for a downtown city sidewalk beautification project, the city also is considering pulling out of downtown the cornerstone of the downtown business — city hall. The only compelling argument for doing this I have heard to date is the feeling it will save the city some money. I say at what cost? What message is being sent if the city spends $1 million to beautify the downtown and then leaves because it is cheaper to move away?

As a commercial builder, we complete between $10 and $15 million worth of construction annually. Ninety percent of that work includes renovation, so we have a very good understanding of what renovation costs are and when it makes sense.

I would like to share with the public some renovation facts. For a building to be a good renovation option, several things need to be considered. First is the building structurally sound, is the exterior in good repair (foundation, wall finishes, roof, windows, and doors)? Is the building footprint such that you can easily accommodate your desired end result? Is it ADA compliant or easily converted to be so? Is it mostly free of interior load- bearing walls so that you don’t have to make wholesale structural changes? If the answer to all of these questions is yes, one could historically look at saving anywhere between 15 and 25 percent of the cost of the building project before you deduct the costs of interior demolition.

The building the city is looking at is 40 years old. It is arranged and laid out for a church and Sunday school. It is unlikely that the interior walls will line up where they need to be.

Here’s how it works: you remove the walls so you can reconfigure them. You then have to remove and replace all of the ceilings and floor coverings. The lights don’t lay out right plus they are probably highly inefficient and need to be replaced anyway. The power will be undersized so you are looking at a new service, new wiring, plus cable and data wiring that are probably mostly non-existent anyway. The heating and air conditioning ductwork will be configured wrong and is probably undersized for city needs so that will have to be replaced as well. The heating and air conditioning equipment — if older than 10 years — will be obsolete and inefficient enough that it will probably need to be replaced as well, not to mention that it is probably undersized, too. The exterior windows are most likely in the wrong locations and not up to current energy code requirement. Doors and hardware have 40 years of wear and tear on them and likely need to be replaced as well.

Last, but certainly not least, is the sanctuary. The roof, the walls and the windows in this part of the building will always look like a church unless you tear it down or at least tear off the roof and start over. This section of the building will take more work than the rest of the facility to transform it into something usable.

In the end, you will spend on average 80-85 percent of new cost to try and transform a church into a city hall and in the process you will have removed the functions of city hall from the downtown. With money being the primary reason for this move, I implore the city to reconsider and have the vision that our ancestors did in erecting a landmark building in the heart of downtown that will serve the public well for another 70 years.

I would hate to see a situation where people for the next 40 years had to give directions to city hall by saying “go north on Highway 81 until you see a building that looks like a church surrounded by cemeteries.”

LOWELL BECKENHAUER JR.
President, Beckenhauer Construction