The city of Newberry paired its fall festival on Saturday with tours of the new city hall ahead of the building’s official ribbon-cutting slated for 5 p.m. on Nov. 24.  

Crews from Scorpio Construction broke ground 15 months ago on the 12,000 square foot building next to the city’s current municipal building (25420 W Newberry Rd.).  

The project was in the final stages on Saturday, with landscaping crews putting in the final touches as Mayor Tim Marden and City Manager Jordan Marlowe led citizens on tours through the building’s freshly painted and unboxed offices. 

They shared the purpose behind each design choice and how the space will serve city staff and residents in the future. 

“We’re very excited,” Marlowe said. “We think Scorpio has done a great job building and Monarch Design helped us make sure it looked intentional.” 

In total, Marlowe said the cost for the new building and renovating the former municipal building came to around $8.9 million, with half covered by impact fees and infrastructure tax.   

He said this means new residents are splitting the cost with existing residents, as the new ones are largely driving the need for the increased infrastructure. 

The building’s design was conceived through multiple community workshops over the past four years and incorporates the architectural style of the original municipal building from the 1990s and the First Baptist Church of Newberry across the street.  

According to a handout from the city, more than 40,000 hours of labor helped install roughly 575 sheets of drywall, 18,500 screws, over 100 cubic yards of concrete, 2,000 square feet of interior glass and 1,500 square feet of local field stone placed by hand. 

The most challenging part, Marlowe said, has been finishing. 

“We’ve been so close now for a few months, but [we’re in] that last 2-3% to pull us across,” he said. “As you can see, we still have some landscaping that we have to do, we still have some work in the parking lot that we have to do. But it is coming along.” 

The new city hall will consolidate departments currently dispersed across four locations around the city under one roof.  

The city’s handout said the new building includes 20 private offices, four open offices, two conference rooms, and a City Commission meeting chamber with a capacity for 150 attendees. Motion-sensor lighting throughout aims to save electricity. 

Departments of finance, administration, human resources, building permits, planning and zoning, Community Development Department, Community Redevelopment Agency, code enforcement, city clerk, community engagement officer and the city manager will all move into the new building next week. 

The Fire, Public Works, and Recreation departments will stay where they are. 

On the tours, residents got up close with the new chamber’s AV office, equipped with cameras and automatic microphones for livestreaming. The dais has enough seats to accommodate the City Commission, charter officers and other boards like the county for joint meetings. 

Employees have multiple places to take breaks, including the designated break room that will have a 9-foot-tall Christmas wreath delivered in the next few weeks, and two “quiet rooms” to decompress after difficult meetings or phone calls, or for nursing mothers. 

Marlowe said his favorite part of the layout as city manager is having his office centrally located. 

“I’m right in the center, I just have to open up a door, and I can get to anybody,” he said. “The efficiency is going to be very, very exciting.” 

Outside, a drive-thru allows citizens to pay bills without parking, and an alleyway between the old and new city halls will have speakers and removable bollards for community events where food trucks and vendors can set up. 

Marlowe said expansion was also factored into the new building’s layout. With the space expected to last for another 20 years before needing to add on again, “bullpens” in common areas provide flexible workspaces for more employees as the city grows. 

Connecting the new city hall to the old one also accounts for expansion.  

The former municipal building will house offices for the Alachua County Property Appraiser, elected officials like the mayor and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. The City Commission chambers will be turned into a conference room that can be used by the public and outside organizations. 

Newberry’s official ribbon-cutting for the city hall will include more tours ahead of the first City Commission meeting in the new chambers at 7 p.m.