Aurora City Council set to vote on $1.77M City Hall renovation project

Aurora aldermen are set to approve a $1.77 million contract to renovate the City Council chambers at City Hall.

The plan also would create a communication center out of conference rooms that would include a new Comcast public access studio, and a press room.

The project is dubbed ACE, for Accessibility Communications Enhancement,

and would improve the ability to communicate both during live meetings at City Hall, and on how things are broadcast on both the city’s public access television channel, and on social media, such as Facebook and the city’s website, according to city officials.

The $1.77 million would go through the city’s job order contracting program to F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen and Associates.

The about $1.77 million contract would be about 65% paid from American Recovery Program Act funds, and about 35% paid from the fees the city gets annually from Comcast. That company pays the city about $1.7 million a year, coming to about $17 million over the 10-year agreement it has with the city.

Aldermen have placed the contract on the consent agenda for the May 10 regular City Council meeting, which means it is likely to be approved.

The project would renovate the City Council chambers on the second floor of City Hall by creating a new, more inviting and usable entryway, opening up the ceilings, eliminating the bolted down chairs and replacing them with individual, stackable chairs that can be moved around.

The council dais would be expanded to include the corporation counsel and city clerk, eliminating a small table in front where they currently sit.

The room also would be made more tech and communication savvy, with cameras that swivel in all directions, new microphones that would have a remote and central control area, new speakers and repositioned display areas.

In the fifth floor conference rooms the same audio-visual equipment would be added as in the council chambers. The City Council will meet there while work is being done on the council chambers.

The project would also create a news room on the fifth floor where televisions stations can video material or do live stand-ups.

There also will be a new television studio, including all new equipment, a live video viewing workstation, an editing workstation, a control room and an area from which to broadcast live meetings across Facebook, the city’s website and onto Comcast’s local television station

Officials said the timeline is to have all the rooms remodeled and everything ready by January 2023.