Moving trucks will again be pulling up to the City/County Building today, this time to move the Bismarck administrative offices to the Bismarck/Burleigh Public Health building.

The move will be temporary - about eight months - according to City Administrator Bill Wocken. It's all part of a $885,641 remodeling project approved earlier this month by the city commission.

Other fourth-floor inhabitants also have moved. The city attorney will be located in offices on the City/County Building third floor. Human resources made the move to BBPH, 500 E Front Ave., last week, taking up quarters in the basement. Administration offices will be on the first floor. The mayor's office also is moving.

On Wednesday, construction crews will begin gutting of the fourth floor, the start of the asbestos removal. Badlands Environmental will handle this portion of the project, while Professional Contractors is the general contractor working with Central Mechanical and Bergstrom Electric.

This is the third such remodeling project taken on in as many years. Second floor was remodeled at a cost of $1,310,345 and now houses city engineering, planning and permitting. Third floor went through a similar project at a cost of $1,383,505, putting all the city's fiscal operations in one area.

The City/County Building was originally the Quain & Ramstad Clinic. The original building was built at the turn of the century with several additions before the city and county took up residence there in the early 1980s.

Following a tour of the fourth floor, it is evident it was designed as a clinic with many small rooms for patients. Some remodeling has been done, cutting walls to enlarge rooms. But structural beams and heating vents appear in the center of rooms along with hallways that make the floor difficult to use.

"The remodeling will make the floor a lot more efficient. We should have about 20 to 25 percent more square footage," Wocken said. "The restrooms are not American Disability Act compliant and will be after the remodeling. We're converting a number of hallways that are poorly spaced. We're converting a lot of dead space into productive space."

Keith Hunke, assistant city administrator, said that the heating and cooling system will be updated with the replacement of some of the equipment. It will have the same automated system as incorporated on the second and third floors.

There also are plans for some remodeling of basement bathrooms and storage areas, but these projects will take place after the fourth floor is complete. Included in the project is a security system for access to the building.

The only portion of the building that remains relatively untouched is the elevator and stairs, thought the stairwell will be getting some paint.

With the completion of the projects, the building should be finished for the foreseeable future, said Wocken. There is enough room for an expanding work force, and the city administrator said that the staff isn't growing that fast.

There has been $35,000 set aside for new furniture, but most of the old will be brought back after the remodeling.

It took nearly six months to finalize the floor plan, Hunke said. It went through eight revisions before the current format was selected. Once a patron gets off the elevator or comes up the steps to the fourth floor, they will enter a large receiving room which will have windows to the various departments.

Wocken said that there have been some questions on why the city didn't just construct a new building, rather than putting in all the money it did to remodel.

"There's a great amount of benefit in being downtown," Wocken said. "The court system is right across the street, and the county is here also (the city leases the first floor of the City/County Building to Burleigh County). Public health is not that far away either."

Expectations are to be back in the City/County Building by July 1.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)