By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Members of the Alabaster City Council recently agreed to move forward with bidding out the construction of a new City Hall building on the site of the old Siluria cotton mill.

After discussing the project for several weeks, the council agreed on a design for the building, which will house Alabaster’s administrative government offices, city court and other municipal departments.

Alabaster City Administrator George Henry said the new City Hall would consolidate offices currently spread out over three buildings. If the new City Hall is built, the Alabaster Police Department likely will receive all space at the current City Hall off U.S. 31.

The design calls for 12,620-square-feet on the ground level, and an additional 7,764-square-feet on the second floor.

“Upstairs will be initially used to allow for storage of files presently being stored offsite,” Henry said. “(The second floor) is to be designed to accommodate future office expansion as needed.”

Henry said the architect currently is working to design a bid package for the project, and said the project could be bid out as early as mid-May. The bids returned will then be presented to the Alabaster City Council for its consideration by July, Henry said.

If the council approves a bid, construction of the new City Hall likely will take about 10 or 11 months, Henry said. The total cost of the project will likely be about $3.8 million, which includes construction, engineering, furnishings, an emergency generators and other items, Henry said.

Henry previously said the project will be funded “without a negative change to the general fund budget.”

Because the new City Hall would consolidate offices currently housed in three buildings, Henry said the project would benefit Alabaster residents and city employees.

“Right now, from a customer perspective, someone has to possibly go to three different locations to handle one matter. Now that will all be in one location,” Henry said. “Also by consolidating hardware and having this building design we are better positioned to respond to emergencies that require multiple department and agency coordination.”