Space needs for town staff became the prevalent issue at Tuesday’s planning retreat agenda, held in the town hall commissioners’ meeting room.

Interim Town Manager Teresa Piner pointed out that even their meeting space, a former courtroom, isn’t designed for a boardroom and isn’t useful as a training space.

And the rest of the building has become cramped as more departments and staff have been added to the town government over the years.

“We are tight with space even with positions that are not filled,” Piner said.

Piner said the 50-year-old town hall also has energy efficiency problems due to age, and the heating and air conditioning system occasionally breaks down.

She added that in the current economic climate, the staff understands they will continue to use the town hall building for some time.

But the elected officials were aware of the space limitations and planned to generate ideas for a solution to the overcrowding.

They discussed splitting the staff and moving part of the town government into another building, while renovating the town hall for continued use.

Not the first discussion

Commissioner Ira Fuller recapped for the officials how previous town boards had inventoried properties in an effort to find additional space for town staff.

“We have talked about renting, leasing, leasing with an option to buy and possibly buying, then selling that property when we find a new (permanent) facility,” Fuller said.

Commissioners said while renting space was not cost efficient, they would not take it off the table until they know more about what office space is available.

Commissioner Ginna Gray proposed studying the former carpet store/auction building on North Cypress Street near the railroad tracks.

“It’s a big shell, 10,000 square feet. It could hold everything but the police department,” Gray said.

“It has size, parking and it’s on the street so it can connect to cable (for phone and internet connection).”

While discussing the building limitations, police Chief Vance Johnson said processing and transporting prisoners and conducting interviews in the current police building is difficult because the town staff is forced to move through the police station to get to other parts of the building.

Johnson said officers work out of their cars 90 percent of the time and have to keep police records in a rented storage unit due to the lack of space.

“It may be easier to find a place to relocate the police department in the short-term and renovate the (town hall) building to use for the rest of the staff,” Fuller said.

In 2009, commissioners considered a plan to expand the community center for use by the senior center, then converting the existing senior center into a police department.

The town abandoned those plans because of the cost.

Mayor Tim Hinnant also pointed out the town will pay off the debt for construction of the Wendell Community Center in October.

He proposed the commissioners could choose to pay it off ahead of time, possibly by June, to be able to look into a government loan for funding new office space.

“It sounds like a consensus to let staff research properties we could use and they can come back to us, then decide if we should to do a cost analysis and everything to move forward,” Hinnant said.

Town staff said they would be able to pull up the property information that was previously researched for officials to continue talks at the second retreat meeting on Thursday, Jan. 19.

With all five commissioners and the mayor in agreement that a short-term solution is needed now, they will continue to work on the space problem at the January and February town board meetings.

The commissioners and mayor talked over what would be considered short-term and long-term plans.

Gray said short-term needs should be met within the next six months.

Hinnant added that a short-term solution for new office space should be considered as use of the new space for up to 10 years.

The one long-term decision they set in stone was any future town hall building would have to be built in the downtown.

That decision had Hinnant questioning if they should look for available land in the downtown area now, because he doubted it would be available down the road when the town could consider a new building.