Refurbished City Hall About to Debut
Marking the beginning of the end to three years of seismic reinforcement and modernization at Los Angeles City Hall, workers began moving office furniture for some departments back into the building Thursday.
Although the $299-million refurbishment is not yet complete, 150 of about 1,500 city employees who will eventually reoccupy the historic building will be back inside by Tuesday, project manager Stan Morimoto said.
A formal rededication of the City Council chambers, honoring the late City Council President John Ferraro, is scheduled for June 28. The new mayor will move in about the same time.
The seismic work was ordered after the 1994 Northridge earthquake and had included seismically isolating the building from shaking of more than magnitude 8.0 on the San Andreas fault or 6.8 on the nearby Elysian Park fault.
All 27 stories of the 1928 building have been renovated and are to be occupied by July.
In addition to the seismic work, the renovation also involves moving City Council offices to new fourth floor suites, providing new acoustical systems and computer connections, new stairways to the observation towers and many other improvements.
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