SYRACUSE -- Back in 1993, before the current City Hall opened, residents would trip over storage boxes on the floor as they tried to find seating space at a council meeting in the crackerbox old City Hall.
Things improved dramatically in 1994 when the new building opened, but now five years later that structure is already too small.Although seating at City Council meetings is usually adequate, city employees are in cramped quarters.
The City Council approved a plan Nov. 9 to add more space not only to the main city building but also to the police building and the fire station.
The city's municipal center is at 1787 S. 2000 West. The council's first step is to have architectural plans drawn for the additions.
The big problem is that since the current City Hall opened in 1994, the number of full-time city employees has almost tripled, from 12 to 30. In that same span, Syracuse's population has almost doubled, going from 6,000 to 10,000 people.
Syracuse has had its own city planner for only a couple of years, but there's no space for him in City Hall. His office is in a nearby white home the city purchased for future expansion plans.
City recorder Kathy Holt said Syracuse is looking at adding another six offices in the city building, five offices in the police department, another bay for the fire station and some basement storage space between the municipal building and the public safety structure.
While there's no square-footage estimate of the additions currently available, the city estimates the improvements will cost about $750,000.
The good news is that the city has that much money sitting in the capital projects fund.
Officials hope construction will begin on the additions early next year, with completion later that year.
The extra offices would probably extend both City Hall and the public safety building out by some 30 feet each, according to Holt. The basement structure would go in between the two buildings and connect them by an underground walkway. That underground addition would be used for storage.