We learned today how many buildings the city of Wichita owns and how much it will take to keep them properly maintained.
The city has 541 buildings at 176 sites. 135 buildings are labeled as being in "good" condition, 59 are in "fair" condition, 194 are "poor" and 152 are listed as being in "critical" condition. A part of the reason: 60% of these facilities are over 40 years old.
Alan King, Director of Public Works, said maintaining the value of city-owned property will be at an increased cost, on the order of $1.5 million more annually.
City Manager Robert Layton said funding increases for this work will be have to be gradual but that city can't put it off any more. There's no word on how the city will pay for this proposed increase.A total of 5.2 million square feet of floor space resides in city-owned structures.