Today is moving day for Waynesville City Hall, and city office employees will soon be joined on the moving van by Waynesville police.
Office employees have been packing boxes since last week to prepare to move the city hall at 201 North Street, where they’ve had their offices since shortly after World War II, to a new location at 601 Historic Route 66 West. The new offices in what’s commonly known as the “old social services building” will be much larger, and since they’re located on Waynesville’s main street, will be much easier to find.
As she continued packing up her office, Deputy City Clerk Carol Welsh said she’ll be glad when the new city offices open on Monday.
“We’ll have a bit more space over there and we hope also to serve the public better by being able to accommodate them a little more easily,” Welsh said.
However, she said the moving process has been a challenge. Rather than shutting down city hall entirely for several days of moving, employees continued to perform their duties in their old offices as they were taking items out of their desks and off shelves.
“Packing while you’re still working has been the most challenging thing,” Welsh said. “Inevitably someone will come in and ask you to do something, and what you needed was just put away in a box and loaded onto the truck.”
However, Welsh, who has worked at city hall since 2001, said moving hasn’t been that bad of an experience.
“Being an Army brat and an Air Force wife, moving is in my blood,” she said.
The space being vacated by city employees will soon be filled by Waynesville police officers. Police Chief Bob Carter is quite familiar with the building where he soon will work — two decades ago when he was commissioned as a patrolman and Waynesville was a smaller city, the police department shared space with other city employees in city hall, and also maintained a 24-hour dispatch facility and small jail in city hall. Years earlier, city hall even had a garage housing a fire engine for the small Waynesville City Fire Department.
Waynesville police have been renting a storefront facility in Townfield Plaza that isn’t really large enough for the needs of the police department; city council members originally purchased the building on Historic Route 66 as a new location for the police department. However, after inspecting the building, Waynesville Police Chief Don McCulloch and Waynesville City Administrator Bruce Harrill agreed that it would be cheaper for the city if the police department moved into the existing city hall and if city office personnel moved to the new building.
Carter said he “most certainly” agrees with his predecessor’s decision.
“Definitely there will be more space for operations, and we’re looking forward to it,” Carter said.
Between calls on Thursday, Waynesville police were packing up their own offices for the move. Their first day of operations in the current city hall hasn’t yet been announced, but the new Waynesville City Hall will open for business at 8 a.m. Monday.