For more than a year, renovations have continued inside the Citizens Tower in downtown Lubbock, as the city works to turn the building into the new city hall.
The city purchased the building at 14th Street and Avenue K in November 2014. Once city hall is moved into the tower, the current city hall will become the new police department.
In the months since purchasing the building, a lot of the work at the building has been inside.
Wes Everett is the Director of Facilities Management for the City of Lubbock. Everett said there has been a lot of progress inside, removing mold and asbestos.
“So we’ve done our best to be able to really try to get in here and give us a clean, open slate for the engineers to be able to evaluate, and to go through and utilize, best layout the facility,” Everett said.
Everett lead a tour Monday morning, to show how the progress has been coming along inside the building. He was joined by council members Steve Massengale, Latrelle Joy, and Juan Chadis.
“When we bought the building, there was a lot of criticism about it, but in order to further downtown redevelopment, and to remove this eyesore, which is what it has been for a number of years, we felt like that was in the best interest of the entire city, not just downtown, but the entire city,” Joy said. “I haven’t changed my mind. I think it’s going to be a great place for the citizens of Lubbock, and as everyone knows, we have plans for city hall that we currently occupy.”
“I enjoy projects like this, like I said, the mayor is committed to bringing this in on schedule, under budget, and make this building extremely customer friendly,” Massengale said. “The plan, as far as how it serves the taxpayer, probably could change from the original concept, but inheriting the project is something I’m excited about just because I can’t wait to see it’s completion and serve our citizens.”
Massengale said the city hopes to be moving into the building at the end of 2018 or in early 2019.
