Lackawanna, NY (WBEN) If you've driven along Ridge Road in Lackawanna, no doubt you've seen the long time city hall building. That building has outlived its usefulness say a former and the current mayor, and offices are moving this week.
Former Lackawanna Mayor Geoffrey Szymanski says the building's design is a Dingbat design. "I'm not kidding. It's designed to increase parking underneath, but eventually gravity will always win, and Dingbat Design Buildings typically have a shelf life of about 50 years. And right around the time we decided to look around for a different building, we were already, I think, at 50 years with with that use. So we had some structural issues, a lot of energy inefficiency going on that building, and so we started looking around at numerous buildings within Lackawanna, and the one that had the most potential was the building that myself and the city council wound up purchasing in 2019," says Szymanski.
Szymanski has his own nickname for the building. "The orange City Hall has a nice little nickname of the Orange Milk Crate on Stilts," says Szymanski. "When have you ever seen an orange building? Whoever built that I don't know why they use orange, but they put one of the ugliest buildings in Western New York right across the street from one of the most beautiful buildings, which is the Basilica."
He says the building is so old that the air conditioning and heating core, the city couldn't even find parts for it anymore. "It definitely ran its life. We got every bit out of it as we possibly can, but you know some people like it because it's different. But honestly, I wasn't a big fan of the design. Anything that was very esthetically pleasing to the eye for being an official government building," says Szymanski.
"It was an eyesore, and I did tell all of the engineers and the designers that I didn't want to see any orange in this new building," says current Mayor Annette Iaffalo. "There is no orange. The city hall on Ridge Road did serve its purpose, but over time it did start to deteriorate, and it was ready for a new city hall."
Iaffalo cites the hearing and cooling was a major issue. "We had a couple incidences in prior years where smoke was coming out of the receptacles because employees, because they didn't have heating, would plug in the electric heaters, and then not turn them off. So it it was overloading the circuits, but all in all, it was time to move out of there and come into the new building," she adds.
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New Lackawanna City HallCity of Lackawanna Photo
Iaffalo says the new city hall differs from the old one. "First of all, it's handicap accessible. It's all one floor, totally high tech, absolutely beautiful. We have all the offices that serve the public in the front so that they can come in and get serviced and leave easily. They don't have to worry about elevators. They don't have to worry about stairs. It's just totally accessible to everyone," she says.
The cost is $18 million, and is expected to open Wednesday.
