The Winchester City Council has opened bids for a major City Hall renovation project with a Chattanooga firm submitting the lowest entry.

The issue was scheduled to go before the council on Tuesday with a vote to take place that evening. However, the meeting was after the Herald Chronicle’s press deadline. More details about the project will appear in the April 23 edition.

The council discussed the bid process in an April 7 workshop with Robert Roberts LLC from Chattanooga submitting the lowest bid at an even $6 million.

Sain Construction Co. of Manchester submitted an $8,975 million bid while Baron Construction LLC from Nashville submitted an $8,523 million figure.

City Administrator Beth Rhoton recommended the council go with the lowest bid.

Initial estimates were that the project would cost about $4 million. However, Rhoton said costs have risen due to inflation since the project was conceived more than two years ago, and subsequent structural tests were done to ensure the project was on solid footing to move forward.

Mark J. Stockman, an architect with Allen & Hoshall Engineers-Architects-Surveyors, based in Chattanooga, said at the outset of the project that the city was faced with making improvements to the current City Hall or pursuing a new facility. He added that if a decision were made to upgrade the current building, the project would include adjacent space previously used by the Fire Department.

Stockman had said the existing City Hall is located in a historic century-old facility with an addition being 60 to 80 years old.

He added that the original structure has about 2,800 square feet on a main level that is occupied, and it also has a partially used, full basement and an upper level that is used for storage and housing heating and air-conditioning equipment.

Stockman said the area of the addition is about 1,500 square feet, and it is occupied and connects to the basement. He added that a 400-square-foot connector space provides a transition from the City Hall spaces to the unused fire-station area, which totals 3,600 square feet.

He said that the fire station connects to two buildings that are each two stories tall. The first building offers 2,850 square feet per floor and the second building has 2,000 square feet per floor, he said, adding that some city departments are located in the buildings and will need to be relocated into the proposed remodeled area.

Stockman said the interior space for the remodel could include offices for the recorder, the finance director, the special projects director, the Human Resources director, the Winchester Main Street director, the building official and the codes enforcement official, plus two to three future offices. He added that there would also be space for a sixto- eight-person conference room, a larger io-to-20-person conference room, City Hall chambers, a courtroom with a ioo-person seating capacity and a storage area.

Additional space would be factored in for restrooms, storage, a break room and a mechanical room.

The council endorsed a plan in November 2024 that calls for renovating the current City Hall building, plus the former Fire Department bays, into 12,405 square feet of useable space.

The council was considering three options, including: — Upgrading the current City Hall building, airlock area, fire station bays and the first floor of the adjacent annex building into a single-story renovation.

— Upgrading the current City Hall building using all three levels and the fire station bays, leaving an option to sell the annex building.

— Building a new City Hall.

The council settled on the second option, which includes renovating 7,735 square feet on the ground floor, 3,310 square feet on the lower level and 1,720 square feet on the upper level.

The majority of the city’s administrative offices will be gathered into the existing City Hall’s ground floor to provide better use of the space and promote inter-departmental communication.

The Building and Codes Department will be located on the upper level, and the conference area will be located on the lower level.

The citizen-contact offices will be located near a new lobby in the front part of the fire-bay area while the courtroom and council chambers will be located in the remaining fire-bay space, providing a larger area totaling 1,850 square feet.