Category: News || By

New lights, new paint, new ceiling tiles and new carpeting don't hide the fact that the city's vintage 1959 municipal building is also one of its least-loved pieces of architecture.

Still, it's looking a lot more cheerful on the second floor of the former city hall, where parks department employees are renovating the offices in hopes of attracting new tenants.

City council last week authorized five-year leases with the Regional Chamber Alliance (descendant of the old Mon-Yough Chamber of Commerce) and the Twin Rivers Council of Governments. If both leases are signed, the RCA would relocate to the city from White Oak, while the COG would move from its present location in the West Mifflin Municipal Building.

The city stands to gross nearly $40,000 from renting the mayor's former offices and more than $66,000 from the office suite formerly used by council and the city clerk.

All of the offices should be ready for occupancy in early February.

The building at the corner of Lysle Boulevard and Market Street --- distinguished by an all-glass front and fifties-style V-shaped entrance way --- is still used by the city police and fire departments as a public safety building. In addition, the first-floor city treasurer's office is now rented to District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr.

But the offices upstairs have been vacant since the mayor, council and other administrators moved into the former McKeesport National Bank building at Fifth and Sinclair.

Twin Rivers COG has been searching for a new location since West Mifflin opted out of the organization and joined the neighboring Steel Valley Council of Governments. Twin Rivers currently provides joint purchasing and shared municipal services to 12 municipalities in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, including the city; Elizabeth, Glassport, Liberty, Lincoln, Port Vue, Versailles, West Mifflin, West Newton and White Oak boroughs; and Elizabeth, Forward and South Versailles (Coulter) townships.

Executive Director John Palyo says the COG is currently renting its space in West Mifflin on a month-by-month basis. An office search committee has looked at more than 20 locations in the Mon-Yough area and McKeesport's former municipal building is one of the finalists.

"It's definitely a spot we want to look at, and it's a location central to our members," Palyo says.

A earlier proposal to rent the vacant Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County office and garage on Walnut Street in Christy Park --- a former Super Dollar market --- fell through.

One feature that could affect the COG's decision is access to garage space. The COG currently owns a street-sweeper that's shared by its member municipalities and recently purchased a new recycling truck, and would like to put both pieces of apparatus in a weather-proof garage, Palyo says.

The COG's recreation equipment also needs to be stored somewhere, he says. McKeesport officials have suggested that COG could have access to the garage bays currently used by the fire department when a new public-safety building is constructed on Walnut Street in the Third Ward.

But no date has been set for opening a new police and fire complex, whose construction is partially tied to Allegheny County's plans to build a regional court facility in the city.

Until then, Palyo says the city would give COG access to a separate garage. Visitors' parking would be accommodated on Market Street, he says, while COG employees would be allowed to use the so-called "Memorial Lot" next to the War Memorial on Lysle Boulevard.

The decision will hopefully be made "in the next couple of weeks," after the search committee has time to inspect the renovations, Palyo says. The process was delayed because COG board members had to finalize their municipal budgets in December, he says.