Bangor city staff will likely be able to move back into City Hall this summer when the roughly 18-month renovation of the historic building is expected to end.
Extensive renovations to the interior and exterior of Bangor City Hall, which aim to make the building safer, more accessible and easier for residents to use, are expected to wrap up in late July or early August, according to Courtney O’Donnell, Bangor’s assistant city manager.
The most noticeable work focuses on the first floor of the building, where the city relocated many core municipal services to make them easier to find.
The renovations, which the building has needed for decades, are meant to make it easier for residents to complete necessary tasks, such as pay their taxes, register a vehicle or vote absentee.
“Regardless of what you’re coming to City Hall for, it should all be on the first floor,” said Debbie Laurie, Bangor’s city manager.
For example, the City Council chambers where public meetings are held will be on the first floor. The room was previously on the third floor of the building, down a long hallway.
This work also provides security for municipal workers by placing them behind bulletproof windows where they can serve the public, but residents won’t be able to access private offices or meeting rooms unless escorted by a staff member.
The building was constructed in 1914 to be a post office and courthouse, which means it wasn’t set up well to be City Hall when Bangor took it over, Laurie said. It was also one of the first buildings to be constructed after the Great Fire of 1911.
Additional work to the building includes electrical and mechanical system upgrades, new heating and cooling and ventilation systems, asbestos abatement, a fire alarm system throughout the building and a new elevator between the first and third floors, Davis said.
The city also installed a new generator capable of powering the entire building and repointed — replaced the mortar between stones — two sides of the building, Laurie said.
City Hall’s old elevator was small and didn’t meet standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was also aged, making replacement pieces expensive and difficult to find, David Little, Bangor’s finance director, previously told the Bangor Daily News.
The renovations, which are the first major interior changes to the building since the mid-1970s, are expected to cost just shy of $10 million, according to Jeff Davis, Bangor’s engineering director.
Bangor city staff and functions moved into the Penquis CAP building on Harlow Street in November 2023 and construction began about a month later, roughly four years after voters approved $6 million for the improvements in November 2019.