The West U City Council approved code variances for the new city hall and police facility at their April 26 meeting, including a variance for the city’s building height requirement.
Construction for the expansion project is scheduled to start May 10 and includes the building of a two-story structure. City code requires a building to not exceed 35 ft. and the council approved a height variance for the new building to be less than 50 ft.
“Maximum height of any part of the structure is 35’. The new addition will exceed this requirement,” City Manager Michael Ross wrote in his variance to city council.
But, the maximum height of the new facility will not exceed the maximum height of 35 ft. It will only be in the 20 ft. range, Ross said.
“We just wanted to make sure we were covered,” he said. With the construction scheduled to begin in early May, the city didn’t want to run into any code problems.
The code for the maximum height requirement applies to any equipment used in the construction of the expansion that makes the building look bigger than it actually is, Ross said.
The new police and fire facility will be two stories and each story is typically 10 ft.
The expansion project costs $5.9 million. The city has a budget of about $400,000 for furniture, fixtures and audio visual equipment for the completed rooms.
The construction of the new facility is expected to take between nine months and one year to complete.
By: Sara Waisanen on Thu, Apr 29, 2010
City Government