The original item was published from April 8, 2023 to April 6, 2023 2:58 PM
Dear Minot:
It’s moving month at the City of Minot.
Not for everyone, of course. Just for those who will relocate to the new City Hall in downtown Minot. If all goes according to schedule, most employees should be relocated by the end of this month.
Some employees who will be making the move have begun packing personal items from their offices. Packing will officially start April 13-14 for departments at the current City Hall, and continue on April 19-21 for departments that will be moving from Public Works to the new City Hall, including the City Assessor’s office, Economic Development, and the National Disaster Resilience office. Employees in Central Dispatch will move at a later date.
The entire process has been a long time coming, considering the vision of relocating City Hall began before the City was awarded $74.3 million in 2016 as part of the Housing and Urban Development National Disaster Resilience Competition. Moving Central Dispatch and City Hall out of the flood zone was one of the projects in the original action plan we submitted to HUD.
If you recall, City department heads and City Council members toured two locations downtown – the Big M building and the former Wells Fargo building – before choosing the Wells Fargo building as the new City Hall. Soon after, the City purchased the building, and renovations quickly began, continuing for roughly the past year. And it’s almost finished.
The new City Hall will provide residents of Minot with a much more convenient location to do business, whether it’s paying a utilities bill, attending a City Council meeting, gathering information from the Assessor’s office, or simply meeting with a member of the City Council. The new building will also house the City’s Information Technology and Public Information departments, which were previously located in the Minot Municipal Auditorium.
The parking lot on the south side of the building will be available for members of the public, with far more spaces available than in the loop in front of the current City Hall. We’ll provide more information in the coming weeks to let everyone know when utility billing is relocated and operational at the new City Hall and other details.
Moving month is the culmination of years of work and planning. There have been countless meetings to determine what needed to be included in the new location, and which departments should be housed there. Those meetings led to even more meetings to figure out the logical layout of the new building, and to decide how the departments would be set up.
The new City Council chambers was a challenge in itself, with engineers and architects working together to make sure there was ample room for attendees as well as the proper equipment to ensure the meetings could continue to be live-streamed on the City’s social media platforms and the local cable television station.
After we’ve moved and settled a bit, we’ll host an open house and Business After Hours event for May 11 at the new City Hall. We’ll have more details on that event in the coming weeks.
I hope you’ll join us at the May 11 event, and I encourage you to take some time to attend a City Council meeting in the new City Hall so you can see the results of this much-needed renovation project, which was completed on budget and on time. City Hall is, after all, the building where the public’s business is conducted in an open and transparent atmosphere.
I think you’ll like the results of this long-awaited project.
You can find more about what’s happening at the City of Minot at minotnd.org, or find us on Facebook and Twitter. We’d also encourage you to sign up for our monthly electronic newsletter on our website.