The Holts Summit Board of Aldermen Monday night introduced an ordinance to purchase a building next door to the City Hall for $310,000.
City Administrator Brian Crane said the city plans to convert the 5,000-square-foot building to serve as a new City Hall for Holts Summit.
The current City Hall would be turned over to the Holts Summit Police Department, which already occupies the lower level of the building.
Crane said the existing meeting room used for regular public meetings of the Board of Aldermen and for City Municipal Court sessions will be retained by the police department as a training room.
"The police department is outgrowing its space. The same is true for City Hall offices," Crane said.
The city originally had planned to renovate space for a police department expansion above the storm shelter building immediately south of City Hall, but that proposal was put on hold last June when officials first learned it might be able to purchase the building immediately north of City Hall.
Crane said if the ordinance is approved the city will close the deal for the new building in about one month.
The building to be purchased also has more than 50 paved parking spaces on one acre of land.
After voters approved a 20-year extension of the capital improvements half-cent sales tax on Nov. 6, Crane said the city decided to go forward with purchase of the building, which is occupied now by Mid-Missouri Inventory Service. Crane said the firm plans to move soon to another location in Holts Summit.
An ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Porter Berendzen Architects to plan renovation of the unused open area above the storm shelter next to City Hall has been tabled since last June. It had been planned to expand the police department at that location. But now that plan has changed and the police department will occupy the entire building, including the lower floor it now uses as its headquarters.
Crane said the architect ordinance will be changed for the new proposal.
"We will revise the planned use for the area above the storm shelter. The plan now is to build an area that can be used both as a place for Board of Aldermen meetings and as a courtroom for Municipal Court," Crane said. "These changes will provide needed extra space, especially for the police department."
In other action, the board gave final approval to a $2.4 million budget for 2013. The budget plan includes a 2 percent pay increase for the city's 22 employees.
Crane said the city's budget had been about $2.2 million the last three years.