City Council agrees to purchase city hall site for $850,000

In what Belleville Mayor Ken Voigt called an “historic moment,” the city council, in a special meeting on Feb. 6, voted unanimously to purchase the former Belleville Post Office building at 330 Charles St. as a permanent site for its city hall and police department.
Council members agreed to pay $850,000, take 60 days of due-diligence time before the closing, and post $25,000 in earnest money. City Manager Jason Smith was directed to execute the offer.
Councilwoman Julie Kissel explained that she voted against the proposal to make an offer on the site at the Feb. 3 meeting, but now agrees it would be a nice site for city hall.
Mayor Voigt said they are taking 60 days to make sure it’s right. He said the current site costs the city a lot more money to maintain than this one would.
He said the boiler on the current city hall couldn’t keep up. The city announced city hall as a warming site the previous week and then the next day had to cancel that when the boiler failed.
“This is a prime decision,” Mayor Voigt said, adding he never cared for the proposed Savage Road location on the other side of the tracks. He questioned what would happen when a train was stopped on the tracks and police needed to cross.
Voigt said the two-story part of the present city hall at Five Points is about 100 years old. He said the addition in 1961 was supposed to be a temporary city hall and it’s been city hall for more than 60 years.
“City hall wasn’t the greatest when I joined the police department in 1983,” he recalled. He said the Oddfellows were meeting upstairs.
“It’s been a good old building,” he conceded, adding they will do a very, very thorough check of the proposed city hall.
He said the location at 330 Charles St. is superb because it’s right in the middle of everything, yet off the main streets where the prime markets are.
The location has its own parking lot and adjoins the 90-space library/city parking lot next door.
He said the city will market the current city hall and the piece on Savage Road next to the DPW yard, as well.
He said he expects the city to recoup enough to cover as much as half the cost of the proposed building.
“It’s almost too good to be true,” he said.
He said when he was a young officer, the post office building was up for sale for $100,000 and Police Chief Willard Doktor wanted it for a police department.
“I’ve had my eye on that building for a long time,” Voigt said.
“I, personally, will not raise taxes to build a new city hall,” he said of a past proposal. He later emphasized there will be no debt and no new taxes for this.
Voigt thanked everyone who served on the council over the years and put away money to replace city hall. He named Mayor Kerreen Conley, Mayor Tom Fielder, Councilmen Jack Loria and Tom Smith, noting there are too many to name but they all will be invited to the grand-opening celebration.
Mayor Pro-Tem Kelly Bates said that a new city hall was one of the council goals members listed recently for this year and this is being fulfilled.
Later, Voigt said the WDIV camera will have to be relocated from the communications tower at the present city hall and he doesn’t know if the city needs the tower any more because dispatching is done elsewhere. That will be determined, he said.
The vote at the special meeting came after a three-minute closed-door session. Besides the full council, at the meeting were City Manager Smith, Public Safety Director/Police Chief Kris Faull, and the Independent.
Smith told the council he will be gone Feb. 14 through 21 and return to the office on Feb. 24 for his “vacation.” This is the time Smith had told the Independent previously that he planned to be married locally on Feb. 15, be married again in an beach ceremony in Florida, and then go on a honeymoon at a Caribbean resort.
The total special meeting on Feb. 6 was 16-minutes long. A one-hour closed-door session to discuss the purchase was part of the Feb. 3 regular city council meeting.