Steve Thurston (2021)
A window exposed in the Planning Department offices.
Saratoga Springs City Hall will reopen after months of closure and after many town, city and county buildings have opened in the region, many holding meetings in person and moving away from online Zoom and YouTube meetings.
Commissioner of Public Works Anthony "Skip" Scirocco announced the opening in a press release yesterday afternoon.
"I think the commissioner saw that...it was the appropriate time to reopen city hall" after Gov. Andrew Cuomo ended New York State’s pandemic-related state of emergency, said Michael Veitch, the Department of Public Works business manager.
[Read City Hall security plan is bedevilling, here.]
The building underwent a massive renovation that ended in 2020 after a lightning strike had burned into the third floor in 2018. City Hall was open for a few months only before it was closed in December. It partially reopened in the spring, but city council and other meetings are still online.
A ceremony celebrating the renovation of the building is planned tentatively for mid-July, Veitch said.
Built in 1871, the building is celebrating its 150th birthday this year as well. An annex was added in the late 1870s, and it went through a renovation in 1933, Veitch said, adding the latest renovation really is special because it is rare.
"From the history perspective it'll be worth talking about it," he said.
The offices in the building have been moved around some, but rooms have been improved. As part of the $9 million renovation, a large, circular window in the planning department office has been exposed. The music hall will be able to hold shows on the third floor. The city council chamber will be wired to broadcast meetings. [The dollar figures come from a story in the Saratogian. To see our previous coverage of this topic, read more here.]
The Saratoga Spring Police Department and the Code Enforcement office were back in the building by February 2020, Veitch said. The rest of the building was reoccupied by July.
The final push to get everyone in was a last-minute move, Veitch said. Last May and June, most of the staff planned to stay in the city’s recreation center where they had decamped during the renovation. They thought they could stay undisturbed since none of the activities the center would host were allowed under COVID regulations. And then Gov. Cuomo said summer camps would be allowed, after all, and suddenly the staff had to jump, Veitch said, and everyone moved to City Hall within a month or five weeks.