Finney said Monday that the offices will be moved on Thursday and Friday to 848 Third Ave. in Gallipolis, site of the Gallia Co. Department of Job and Family Services.
“The county commissioners have graciously let us use part of that building along with the Department of Job and Family Services,” Finney said. “They’ve allowed us to have some empty space up there.”
Finney said the Gallipolis Police Department, water department, code enforcement, tax department, parks and recreation department, finance department and city manager’s office will be relocated to 848 Third Ave. until construction of a new Gallipolis Municipal Building is completed. He said all phone numbers for city offices will remain the same, but residents trying to contact the city on July 15-16 may have difficulty doing so during the move.
“All the phones will be changed over on Thursday and Friday, that is our plan for now,” Finney said. “So we’ll have a little bit of disruption of service as we make the transition. Hopefully, we can get (phone service) up by Friday and have everything running.”
Finney said the temporary offices are already outfitted with office furniture, which means city employees will mainly be moving files from the current municipal building to the JFS complex. He said the city is conducting some minor remodeling of the JFS offices to meet the needs of two city departments.
“We had to make one office bigger and we had to do some remodeling for the police department to have a separate lobby for them,” Finney said. “I’m working on a (handicap-accessible) entrance ramp that we’re going to put in. It’s under construction now, but we hope to have it put in this weekend.”
Additionally, the city’s deposit box, currently located across from the municipal building on Second Ave., will be relocated to the temporary Third Ave. site.
Finney said the Gallipolis Volunteer Fire Department will maintain one of its fire trucks at the current municipal building.
The Gallipolis City Board of Commissioners will continue to meet in the ground floor conference room at 518 Second Ave.
“We will maintain our current office for the city commission meetings,” Finney said. “We don’t have a conference room (at 848 Third Ave.) big enough for the meetings, so we’ll continue to hold meetings here.”
The Gallipolis Municipal Court and City Solicitor moved to a temporary location in May. Those offices are located at 49 Olive St., the former home of Family Addiction Community Treatment Services (FACTS), right around the corner from the JFS complex.
As for a new municipal complex, Finney said the city is still moving forward with work on that project and hopes to acquire land in the downtown area on which to locate the new building.
“We’re in negotiations right now with some other property (owners) to allow us to move the city offices,” he said. “It looks pretty positive right now.”
City Commission President Jim Cozza previously stated that the city is interested in property located in the 300 Block of Second Ave. across from Gallipolis City Park. The land has been vacant since a 2001 fire that gutted and destroyed three buildings that housed Haskins-Tanner Clothiers, the Lynch Agency and the Put-On Shop.
I really believe that the property across the street from the 518 Second Avenue , where the parking lot is located and where the previous commission had talked about building.
The 300 block of Second property would make a smaller building than what you have now. Even though the property back on Third. The configurement for a building there is just not feasible