By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – Maintaining Buffalo's historic City Hall remains a challenge as the city continues to dig out of its fiscal crisis.
It's filled with rich architecture and exquisite artwork. The building is on the state and national register of historic places. There are 32 floors -- 25 that are "usable," occupied by various city departments and services with more than 2,000 employees.
Maintaining the building on a day-to-day basis can be a daunting task. City public works commissioner Joseph Giambra says it is a huge responsibility.
"It staggered me at first," Giambra said. "I thought how are we going to take care of it. And then you see the art work on the first floor that needs to be maintained. I don't want don't it to be on my watch to every have something happened to those valuable pieces. So it is an awesome responsibility. Thankfully the Mayor makes sure we have enough money to do the job we have to do on this building. He appreciates what we have and make sure we take care of it."
Operating and maintaince costs for City Hall totaled more than $1.8 million last year. Deputy director of building operations, Philip Nasca, says that's based on utilities, salaries, materials, equipment and building upgrades.
"We spent last year, on the Commissioner's priority orders, $500,000 in capital funding," Nasca explained. "We had to get the building up to the required high rise safety fire code. So last year's $500,000 went to the purchase of an emergency generator, new upgraded fire alarm system and upgraded fire pump, if we ever had to fight a serious fire."
The tremendous size of City Hall is an indication of why utility costs are so high. Total floor space occupies more than 566,000 square feet -- of that -- more than 300,000 square feet is usable office space. Nasca says the city has purchased electricity and gas in bulk for use at all city buildings to ease utility costs. But he says such costs remain high.
"Last year's electric consumption cost over $190,000 for the year," Nasca continued. "Gas was more than $240,000. We over one thousand telephone lines at $15.43 each per month. That comes out to $198,062."
Nasca says despite the city's financial crunch, most of the money the department requested was appropriated when the new fiscal year started last month. But Nasca says what remains the same is a very small work force that maintains the entire building. Nasca figures that it costs more than $8 per square foot to maintain City Hall, He calls that "remarkable" for such a large building.
"We are maintaining this building, 32 stories, with 25 full-time employees," Nasca said. "I don't know how we do it. There is a lot of cleaning to do here and a great deal of maintenance."
The top seven floors of City Hall are used for mechanical purposes. Public works commissioner Giambra says the top level holds water tanks, as well as police, fire and sheriff dispatch radios -- a vital link for emergency services throughout the region.
The flow of employees and citizens at City Hall means extensive, daily use of 12 elevators -- some still operated manually. The city employes two elevator operators. It may be perceived that in a time of financial difficulties, paying elevator operators is an added expense. But according to Giambra the cost of converting the remaining manual elevators is "incredible" -- a quarter of a million dollars per elevator.
"The elevator operators offer a sense of security to the building," Giambra said. "We don't have metal detectors, or police manning the building because it is open to the public. So the elevator operators do add a sense of security to the building. We don't want to covert all the elevators, but in this year's capital budget we are going to try to convert at least two more to be totally automatic."
Giambra says safety and security remain a number one concern at City Hall since last September's terrorist attacks. He says City Hall could easily be a "target," but they remain "vigilant." And deputy director of buildings Phil Nasca says employees are told to watch for anything suspicious.
City Hall was dedicated in July 1932. Now 70 years old, Giambra says more safety code updates need to be completed soon due to changes in the building codes. A new stairwell will be constructed between the 12th and 13th floor. Giambra says will be a costly project, but is needed to ensure the safety of employees at the second tallest building in downtown Buffalo.