Two years ago the City Council put $1.25 million in the capital plan to build out the attic of City Hall for office space. The attic is not being built out. In February the City Manager asked the council to move the money to three other projects, and in March the council did. The letter does not say why the attic plan died.
Where the money went
The largest share, $625,000, goes to tenant improvements at the new teen center at 440 Broadway, which the Boys and Girls Club will run. “Following a rigorous procurement process, the City has issued a Notice to Proceed to the Boys and Girls Club to operate the center,” the City Manager wrote. Tenant improvements, the letter explains, are the build-out costs a landlord pays for a commercial tenant and that stay with the building when the tenant leaves. The club, the letter said, “is working hard to open the Center in 2026.”
The other two pieces are $300,000 for a rooftop air conditioning unit at the public library and $300,000 for a women’s locker room at the police station. Both appear again in the FY27-FY31 capital plan the administration presented to the council on March 2, which lists police locker room renovation and library roofing among the near-term building projects.
What is not explained
The attic build-out was approved in FY24 as a way to add office space in a building that has been full for years. Nothing in the February letter says whether the plan was found to be too expensive, structurally impractical, or simply less urgent than a teen center with a tenant ready to open. Nothing says where the departments that would have moved upstairs will go instead. The capital plan presented a week later lists windows and roofing for City Hall but no expansion.
The teen center is a good use of the money, and the locker room is overdue. The question is a smaller one about how capital plans are made. A $1.25 million line item survived two budget cycles and then vanished in a paragraph, and nobody on the council asked about it on the record. Why the attic plan was dropped, and when the teen center opens, are not stated anywhere in the record.