Bryan a step closer to annex [The Eagle, Bryan, Texas]

May 26--The city owns the building, which was built as a bank in 1965 and sits across Texas Avenue from the Municipal Office Building. The idea to use the building as a City Hall annex was approved in 2009 and the work was estimated to cost $2 million, but Dudley Construction Inc. priced the renovations at $1.4 million.

City Engineer Paul Kaspar said money for the project will come from the city's Risk Management Fund, which is reserved for things related to insurance and risk management. The fund can be used in this case because personnel from those departments will be moving into the renovated building. The fund, which is estimated to have a balance of $4.7 million, cannot be used for things such as street improvements, the police or fire departments or city salaries.

Mayor Jason Bienski said the annex will save the city between $50,000 and $70,000 per year on rent for several offices that house city staff members. It will also allow the city to consolidate resources and use an energy-efficiency grant worth $695,000, which would be lost if not used in the next few months.

The grant will be used to lower the building's ceilings, replace the roof and air-conditioning system, install water-efficient toilets and replace windows.

City officials said they considered alternatives to renovating the building, which has been vacant since the Police Department moved to the nearby Bryan Justice Center in 2008. Renovating the existing building was more cost-effective than selling the property and building elsewhere or rebuilding a new facility in its place, City Engineer Paul Kaspar said.

The city had talked about turning the basement of the building into a health and fitness center, but the contract approved Tuesday does not include those plans, Kaspar said. Renovations to the basement will include building a shell of an exercise facility, but that space could also be used for office or meeting space, he said. That part of the project will cost about $60,000, about 4 percent of the work, Kaspar said.

Also Tuesday, the City Council awarded a contract worth more than $3.7 million to Dudley Construction for a 5-million-gallon concrete water storage tank, which will replace an aging 3-million-gallon water tank. The new tank will be at the intersection of North Tabor Road and East 16th Street.

Also at the meeting, Councilwoman Ann Horton was named mayor pro tem.

Horton, who will act as mayor in Bienski's absence, said she was honored to hold the position.

"I can't think of a time that I would rather be a part of the city of Bryan," she said.

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