CLEARLAKE, Calif. — The city of Clearlake is embarking on a renovation of the building that has housed the City Hall administration offices for the past 27 years.
At its meeting on Thursday, the Clearlake City Council unanimously approved the renovation of the building, located at 14085 Olympic Drive, as part of its consent agenda.
The City Hall Remodel Project was released on May 31, with the six bids the city received opened on June 26.
Adams Commercial General Contracting Inc. submitted a $1,281,110 bid and won the contract. The high bidder, coming in at $1,615,000, was GCCI Inc.
As part of its approval, the City Council authorized City Manager Alan Flora to approve change orders up to 10% of the contract price, a common practice on city projects.
With the project set to start, officials said the City Hall administration offices — which include The Building and Planning, Public Works, Administrative Services and Finance Departments — will move operations temporarily to the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College, located at 15880 Dam Road in Clearlake.
Administration operations will be closed for staff transition on Thursday, July 13, and will reopen at the Woodland Community College site on Monday, July 17.
The Police Department operations, including Code Enforcement, will not be impacted by the renovations and will continue normal operations at 14050 Olympic Drive in Clearlake.
Additionally, City Council and Planning Commission meetings will continue to be held in the City Council chambers, the city reported.
Due to the renovations, there may be times when the public restrooms will be temporarily unavailable.
The funding for the project comes from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, or ARPA.
The $350 million that ARPA distributed to state and local governments was meant to mitigate the fiscal effects of the COVID-19 emergency, Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson explained to the council in her written report for the meeting.
“ARPA also established the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (“CLFRF”) for local government allocations and provide flexibility for each government to meet local needs to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency and to support various activities to decrease the spread of the virus. The funds must be encumbered by Dec. 31, 2024 and spent by Dec. 31, 2026,” Swanson explained.
The city of Clearlake’s ARPA allocation totaled $2.87 million, Swanson reported.
The city reported that the funding will be used, in part, “to fund capital improvements to City Hall geared toward mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.”
Those measures include updating the public and employee restrooms to touchless fixtures, improved privacy stalls and shower facilities, improving the security at the administration front counter with electronic entry points for employees that’s identical to the system at the Clearlake Police Department entrances, transitioning the administration workplace from open and shared cubicle spaces to individual offices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 or other infectious disease, improving public lobby areas, and creating more open space and an improved customer service window for the police lobby and window area.
“City operations have existed at the Olympic Drive location since the mid-1990s,” said Flora in a Tuesday statement from the city. “In the last few years, we have renovated the police department, police dispatch center and City Council chambers. The ARPA funds will allow us to complete the renovations and improve our ability to serve the community in a cleaner and safer City Hall.”
Swanson reported that during its existence, the City Hall building has had several different uses, including a Safeway grocery store in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and a clothing store in the late 1980s and early 1990s before finally becoming City Hall in 1996.
“Since then, there have been little improvements or changes to the office spaces or restrooms, including flooring, shelving, cubicles and furniture,” Swanson wrote in her report to the council.
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Clearlake City Hall renovations set to begin
- Elizabeth Larson
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