Mayor Daniel M. Knapik, along with 25-30 city officials, were reintroduced to their office spaces Tuesday when they were taken on a tour through the newly refurbished City Hall, a project that took $3.4 million and six months to complete.
WESTFIELD – In just six months, City Hall has been transformed from a building with falling wall panels, popping tiles, drafty windows and leaking ceilings to an energy-efficient structure that combines modern conveniences with historical integrity.
Beginning next week, departments will start moving back into City Hall from their temporary offices in the Westwood building, and on Monday, Mayor Daniel M. Knapik will move from the office space the city is leasing on Washington Street to his office on the second floor.
Knapik, along with 25 to 30 city officials, were reintroduced to their office spaces Tuesday when they were taken on a tour through the refurbished City Hall where department heads measured walls and planned how best to utilize their reconfigured areas.
For most, it was the first time they had been in the building since the $3.4 million in renovations got under way in May. The changes were greeted with enthusiasm, and all said they were looking forward to working together under one roof to better serve the public.
“Our goal from the beginning was to have every space utilized for personnel,” Knapik said, noting that with the addition of some school department employees, the building will house about 100 municipal workers instead of 85.
“Thirty percent of this building was unusable,” said the mayor. “Now, three-and-a-half floors are fully operational.”
Parking Clerk Denise L. Carey surveyed her new office and said she is excited by the changes where the Parking and Business License office will now have enough room to conduct business properly.
“I used to say I worked in a shoebox,” she quipped. “This is safer and better for the public.”
City Clerk Karen M. Fanion, as well as collector Michael J. McMahon, said the counters with teller stations in their respective offices second-floor offices will provide the public more privacy while conducting business.
“The counter is a lot bigger,” McMahon said. “It will allow us to be more efficient.”
View full sizeThe city clerk's office in the newly renovated City Hall now features a teller station counter to provide visitors with more privacy. On the third floor, Community Development Director Peter J. Miller and City Planner Jay Vinskey admired their adjacent office suites where Vinskey now has a map room.
“It will make things a lot easier,” he said.
In terms of the entire project, Miller said he likes best the fact that the building was modernized while retaining its historical value with original moldings and wainscoting and other architectural details refurbished and intact.
“This is just right,” he said of the renovations when the tour reached the basement. “It’s not overwhelming.”
Michael A. DelVecchio, project manager with P3 Project Planning Professionals of Norwell, said the building is equipped with the same energy management system and green energy resources that are now in use at Westfield Vocational Technical High School.
“The heating, cooling and fresh air systems are all new,” he said. “There are going to be a lot of happy, comfortable people with the fresh air coming in.”
In the bowels of City Hall, the building now boasts high-efficiency condensing boilers manufactured by Mestek.
New sprinklers and a state-of-the-art fire alarm are also key to protecting the city’s investment in its municipal building.
“This will be a very safe building,” DelVecchio said.
The project is considered the first comprehensive repair project for the building, built in the 1800s, in the last 30 years and is being paid for through bonding and $400,000 in Community Preservation Act funds.
Emergency repairs were done in 2011 at a cost of $193,000 to secure the building from water damage. Also, in 2009, the city completed a $32,000 emergency repair to the City Council chambers to replace a ceiling support beam.