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Irmo got its first look at its forthcoming new town hall on Monday when the town unveiled layouts and renderings of the planned municipal building that could open as soon as later this year.
The town plans to build a new town hall in Moore Park, formerly known as Irmo Community Park and the home of the annual Okra Strut Festival. The new facility will go in close to the park’s amphitheater on Church Street. The two-winged building will include offices as well as a new community space for gatherings and events.
Irmo officials are planning to keep some offices, including town council meetings and municipal court, at the current municipal center at 7300 Woodrow St. But other offices will move into the new 10,000-square-foot space planned for roughly two acres of land in the town-owned park, near the intersection of Church Street and the gravel road Moseley Avenue.
The site is close to a few hundred unpaved parking spaces for public events at the park, which Irmo will maintain along with around 40 paved parking spaces which will be added to the facility.
Once the construction phase of the project is bid out, the new building could be open to the public by the end of the year, said Assistant Town Administrator Doug Polen.
“We can do what we need to do with nine to 10 months for construction,” Polen said.
Designs on display Monday in the town council chambers show the new town hall will house the Irmo town administrator as well as business licensing, finance and the code inspector. Across a small entryway/lobby area will be a community room Polen said could hold events of up to 300 people.
Building the new town hall will cost an estimated $5.8 million, with $1.9 million allocated by the federal government and another million from the state. The remainder will come from the town’s general funds, Polen said.
Irmo resident Sheral Bowman is weary of the building going up in what is now a wooded park, especially as the connecting roads around the site are only partially paved. She would prefer to see the new building go up closer to existing municipal buildings on Columbia Avenue and Woodrow Street, located on the other side of busy Lake Murray Boulevard. At one table Monday night where members of the public were invited to write down their thoughts about the project on sticky notes, Bowman filled up five of them with her concerns.
“The infrastructure will need to be more developed down there,” Bowman said. “You’ve got gravel roads and creeks running behind it. It could end up being a money pit.”
Bowman owns property on Church Street, where several houses are clustered from Lake Murray Boulevard heading into the park. She worries how traffic and development will impact the area if the new town hall is built nearby.
“People have been here for generations. These are houses with no mortgages on them,” she said. “We’ve got rental property there, and that’s going to be my retirement.”
But others of the few dozen members of the public who came to Monday’s unveiling were happy with the new design. Community volunteer Stacey Atkinson said she hoped the entryway could be used as space for local artists to display their talents.
“We have some phenomenal artists here who don’t have galleries,” she said.
Mayor Bill Danielson said Irmo has been looking for a way to add needed space to town offices for a while, and completing a design will allow the town to take the necessary next steps.
“We spent a year looking for the right site, and couldn’t get some to sell,” Danielson said. The park site “is paid for, so we can be fiscally prudent and we think it will make the park more viable.”