City Hall begins move to new location

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) - City officials have started the moving process to their new location. They’re moving out of City Hall and over to the Landmark Center in Southwest Hastings. Officials said the move has been in the works for the past few years.

The finance department will be the first to move in. They’ll be followed by administration and public relations. But all of city workers won’t be in the Landmark Center. Next week, the city’s development service will move to 3505 Yost Avenue.

“I struggle a lot with seasonal allergies and I have some health issues and I can tell everyday I went to work working in that building my allergies got worst and I was sneezing and coughing and felt like I couldn’t breathe and then I’m home for the weekend and it all goes away,” said Brittany Powell, Accounting Assistant, City of Hastings.

Powell said she’s thankful to now have a cleaner work environment.

“It has a better smell that’s for sure,” said Powell. “It doesn’t smell musty and it’s not as humid in here I don’t think as it was at city hall; and yea I’m excited to see how much better I feel as it progresses but I haven’t sneezed once since I’ve been in this building, and I sneezed twice for the 30 minutes that I was at city hall this morning.”

Powell said the move forced some cleaning to be done at city hall.

“It kind of forced us to clear the clutter, which was nice,” said Powell “It’s been needing to happen for awhile. So we went through the basement and went through a bunch of files, scanned everything that needed scanned and saved and then we shredded a lot of stuff. So it kind of forced us to declutter and I think that was good.”

Officials said they didn’t have many problems transitioning into their new space.

“The biggest challenge is just coordinating all the pieces of the move,” said Erik Nielsen, Director of I.T., City of Hastings. “You know working between all the different departments from the utilities, subs and com, Hastings I.T. department, the engineering department, local contractors to move the equipment, and of course all the users in city hall who had to get all their stuff packed up and moved.”

Nielsen said they have a fiber ring around the city assuring the city’s network will run smoothly. City employees also feel the move will help employee’s morale when they come to work.

“I think we’ll all feel a lot more comfortable coming to work,” said Powell. “I know a lot of us have struggled with these health issues and we’ve kind of felt like nobody cared enough about us to do anything about it, and so I think we were very encouraged to see us moving to a new place as a big step forward.”

Powell said she thinks being in a better work environment will help all city employees feel more comfortable coming to work.

The City of Hastings has a two year contract with the Landmark Center, that includes an opt-in for an additional year.

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