Change order coming to reconfigure interior of new Lansdale muncipal building

By Dan Sokil dsokil@21st-centurymedia.com @dansokil on Twitter

Borough Director of Community Development John Ernst said April 1 that an $80,000 change order will be needed for several changes of equipment and furniture locations, moving utility lines and other work identified as plans meet reality.

Our thinking is, we dont really want to spend the amount of money were spending on the building, and not have it work the way it want it to work on opening day, Ernst said.

Those change order items were identified after staff noted the new building does not feature a main reception desk for visitors, a feature the old borough hall closed in November 2013 did but the current temporary complex does not.

After we have been in the trailers, and working with equipment for a period of time, weve realized some of the decision we made about how we will work in the new building will probably not be as effective as they couldve been, Ernst said.

Now, were making the new building respond to the way that were working, he said.

The main motivation of the change order will involve moving power and data lines and lighting equipment near the entrance of the new building, where staff and the architects who designed the new building originally did not plan for a standalone reception desk. The initial plans for the new building would have the public go straight to reception desks similar to those in the temporary trailers, but through our year and a half in the administrative trailers, weve changed that thinking, Ernst said.

In the old borough hall, the receptionist greeted anyone who came into the office helped direct traffic, maybe stopped traffic there and answered a question, instead of proceeding to a customer service window and asking a question there, where staff who handle specialized functions like bill payments may not know answers to more general questions.

Weve come to realize that that becomes quite cumbersome for staff who are not familiar with the process of dealing with those types of questions that come up, Ernst said, and having a receptionist as a front-line person to help weed out and direct traffic would save staff time elsewhere.

Adding the new reception desk area would require changes like drilling through a concrete floor slab that has already been poured, running wires, opening drywall that has already been installed as the contractor has tried to keep to their schedule to have the building ready for borough use by late August, Ernst said. Other changes also accounted for in that change order include moving electrical and data outlets to fit the furniture that has recently been ordered, converting planned waist-level swing gates into full doors for security purposes, and adding security cameras and emergency call buttons throughout the building, to make staff as safe as we possibly can. Continued...

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Change order coming to reconfigure interior of new Lansdale muncipal building