City hall is getting expensive for taxpayers

At almost 20 years old, Bradenton City Hall is showing its age and getting expensive for taxpayers.

The latest round of expenses tallies almost $600,000, with the city council approving $552,000 for new roofs for city hall, the largely unused Bradenton Municipal Auditorium and the Bradenton Police Department. Another $40,000 will go toward a new air conditioning system for the police dispatch area.

In March of 2016, it was a $112,000 expenditure for a new air conditioner system for the auditorium that renewed discussions about city hall being unofficially for sale for some time, but it has not been put on the market. Officials last year said the only way city hall would be sold is for enough money to build a new city hall and police department elsewhere in the city.

Economic Development Director Carl Callahan said that’s a tough sale considering a developer likely would not want the building, just the waterfront property and wouldn’t want to pay what the building is worth. The move from its previous location on Sixth Avenue West off of Ware’s Creek almost two decades ago was controversial and cost every elected official who voted for it their jobs in the ensuing elections.

It’s important to officials now that if city hall moves again to make way for riverfront redevelopment, it doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime.

“It’s held up well,” Callahan said. “But everything in the building is all original equipment and it’s just time that these things are going to come up.”

Also approved was $146,000 for a new roof on Bradenton Fire Station No. 1. Callahan said the city hall roof replacements over the police department and auditorium are fairly simple, but the roof over city hall contains a large solar array that will make the job more difficult, thus more expensive.

Public Works Director Jim McClellan said the air conditioning unit in police dispatch “is all original and you can’t even buy parts anymore for repair.”

Callahan said the room contains sensitive equipment vulnerable to overheating and that expense is being considered an emergency expenditure. The remaining funds for the roofs, he said, will come out of half-cent sales tax revenue, which can be used for infrastructure improvements.

Officials hope several new projects in downtown Bradenton will be the catalyst that leads to the sale of the property. Those projects include the $17 million Spring Hill Suites hotel under construction across from city hall, a new City Centre parking garage, a $12.5 million expansion of the South Florida Museum and the downtown streetscaping project currently being designed.

Those projects should increase the value of the city hall property. Currently, it is valued at $5 million, though it cost more than $9 million to build in 1998.

Construction of a new city hall and police department could cost as much as $15 million.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 1:14 PM with the headline "City hall is getting expensive for taxpayers."