As Austin Utilities eagerly awaits completion of its new facility, Austin City Council has plans to remodel their space and the rest of Austin City Hall.

The council passed a motion earlier this week for Director of Administrator Services Tom Dankert to hire Zenk Read Trygstad and Associates (ZRT) from Albert Lea to be the architect on the project.

Austin Utilities will move this spring and summer from its current space at City Hall to a new $18 million administrative facility near Todd Park. That will free up space in City Hall to remodel and move other city offices.

Preliminary plans call to move the city clerk and council offices into Austin Utilities’s current space. Then Parks and Rec would move into the city clerk and council offices space.

Based on preliminary discussions with Tim Reisnour of ZRT, the construction cost is estimated from $500,000 to $600,000 plus architect fees, though final plans will need to be done so the project can have bids sent out, Dankert said.

Dankert said the cost is higher because the building code will require the entire building to be brought up to Americans with Disabilities Act standards and certain energy efficiencies.

The council has funds set aside in the Building Fund for 2016 and 2017, but Dankert said once the city has a final budget estimate from ZRT, it would look at re-allocating the Building Fund or a transfer of the General Fund fund balance to help offset the estimated increased costs.

Austin Utilities also said whatever office equipment was left behind, such as desks and overhead bins, the city could reuse. But Dankert said the interior state contractor came down and noticed some of the equipment is 20 to 25 years old and he said they “don’t even make that kind anymore.”

Dankert also mentioned it would be nice to have all matching desks in City Hall, not pieces from here and there.

Construction to remodel the current Austin Utilities space in City Hall could include new permanent walls on the main and second floors, new side cube walls, new carpet on the first floor, new paint and a new conference room on the main floor.

On the City Hall side, the city would repaint most areas, create a new break room in the engineering staff work area, repair exterior stucco finish and replacing the current city clerk door with windows for Parks and Rec. The city would also add backlit signage on the north and south sides of the building.

Dankert said city leaders asked many staff members for input about the new space and tried to pool most of that into the plan.

City Hall was built in 1969 and remodeled it in three phases from 1996 to 1998. Austin Utilities moved into the building in 1999, according to Dankert.