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Algona’s new City Hall ‘lends a level of professionalism’

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Algona’s newly-constructed City Hall opened up late last summer. It was rebuilt after years of discussions on replacing the aging building.

ALGONA — The recent completion of the rebuilt Algona City Hall has been a positive for both city staff as well as the residents of the town.

Algona City Hall reopened in October, nearly two years after the original building was demolished, and two decades after discussions first began about replacing it, according to Curt Wiseman, Algona city administrator.

“The city had been looking at building a new city hall for well over 20 years,” he said. “They’d done a lot of studies and research and trying to decide where. They looked at a lot of different facilities.”

The condition of the previous city hall was poor.

“It was well over 100 years old and had numerous structural problems and water and animals and whatnot,” Wiseman said. “So, basically, when I started — I came on here about three years ago — one of my main tasks was to get this project moving forward.”

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Curt Wiseman, Algona city administrator, looks over the newly-rebuilt City Council chambers. The city recently finished construction of a new City Hall after almost two years.

The Algona City Council ultimately decided to demolish the existing city hall and rebuild it from the ground up.

FEH Design, of Des Moines, was the project’s architect, while Sande Construction, of Humboldt, was the contractor. Contractors from Algona assisted in the project as well.

As the project was under way, Wiseman said city staff moved to a temporary city hall located next to the Algona POW Museum.

They moved into the new city hall building in October.

“It’s been a major improvement,” Wiseman said.

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
A mural was included in the newly-rebuilt Algona City Hall, which reopened last summer.

He called it “very professional” and said the building works for what the staff needs.

“There’s a lot more space,” he said. “There are dedicated offices for each individual. A lot bigger council chambers, and the ability to hold other meetings in that council chamber too.”

Wiseman said the new council chambers have a dividing wall that can make the room smaller or larger depending on the size of the meeting.

“It just lends a level of professionalism all the way across,” he said. “And we can much better serve the residents of the city of Algona than we could before.”

He has not heard any complaints about the new building.

The only concern he’s aware of is that taxes could be raised to pay for it.

But that wasn’t an issue.

“We were able to finance through our local option sales tax,” Wiseman said. “We did not have to increase property tax.”

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