LUB to close on city hall proper

LUB to close on city hall property

Jonathan Herrmann newsherald.net

After voting to purchase a pair of properties on Highway 72 in March, Loudon Utilities Board is scheduled to close Friday on a new city hall and customer service center.

LUB voted March 26 to purchase the former University of Tennessee Medical Plaza and Capital Bank building at a cost of about $1.9 million.

A due diligence period for LUB recently came to a close with no unexpected issues popping up during that time, Ty Ross, utilities and city manager for Loudon, said.

“It was as expected,” Ross said. “It was really high grade, class A office space that we thought we could just convert from medical use to governmental use in the UT Medical building. Now the Capital Bank building, it’s turnkey. All we have to do is put our tech in it.”

Unknown is what the transition of technology to the customer service center will look like for LUB or whether that may be done before physical construction on the new city hall is complete.

“At some point the lights go off here and they come on over there, and it has to work,” Ross said. “Somebody has to come in and be serviced, be able to pay their bill and get all of their needs taken care of. We are bringing on an in-house (information technology) person. That hiring is being made. … So when he comes on board he helps guide us as to what stays and what can go and when.”

LUB officials met with Brent Blalock of Design Innovation Architects on July 10 to move toward getting plans for renovations of the UT Medical building finalized.

“What he can do that we cannot is provide a detailed specification signed by an architect, which is what we have to have for an assembly type structure as well as anything that costs over $25,000 has to have the professional license certification,” Ross said July 9 during an LUB workshop.

After meeting with the architect, Ross said it would take “several weeks” to get final plans back with the hope to bid out the project by the end of August or early September.

“We’ve got cost estimates,” Ross said. “We inquired with different commercial contractors for cost estimates and we were told it could be done, the moving of the walls and the relocation for this person at about $25 a square foot. That’s an estimate. We’ll have to see where bids come in.”

Ross did not want to provide detailed estimates before bidding out the project.

Renovations are expected to take about three months once the project begins. Hopes are to be ready to move into the new space in January.

“The biggest thing is to clear out the space for the meeting spaces, the large meeting room and the small meeting room, the ones that will be open to the community, the civic space,” Ross said. “What we’re doing is we’re opening up some 40 percent of the building. Moving those walls and raising the ceiling to create that public space is the biggest part of it.”

Johnny James, who serves on the utilities board and city council, was happy to hear there were no unforeseen problems heading into closing.

“I’m pleased that we haven’t found any pop-ups that would cost us more money, more headaches, more sorrows,” James said. “… I would rather see us do some infrastructure work and some road paving, but it’s all needed. Everything is needed.”

James believes the purchase was a good move.

“The purchase we got on this was a very good deal,” he said. “We could not have built those two buildings for that cost. We just couldn’t have.”

What will happen with the current city hall and LUB headquarters is still up in the air.

“This building ... has been added onto over the years and some parts are more historic than others,” Ross said. “Some parts fit more with the character of the town than other parts. ... It might have to be demolished. We’ll have to take a wait-and-see approach. I’ve actually had calls interested in private ownership of this thing. That’s encouraging.”