New London - Since the 18-foot-long crack in a concrete floor of the Stanton Building at 111 Union St. was discovered last month by a worker replacing carpeting on the second floor, the city has moved employees to previously vacant offices and developed a plan to update those work spaces.

First, the Office of Development and Planning was relocated from its offices on the second floor of the Stanton Building to City Hall. Later, 10 employees from other departments were relocated from offices on the first floor, beneath the cracked floor.

And late last week, the city had a temporary office space trailer parked in the parking lot adjacent to the Stanton Building to house four or five employees from the Building Inspection Division through the summer.

"The Building Inspection Division handles building permits, they take calls from residents about blight-type issues, so we really need to have that office be easily accessible to the public," Director of Public Works Tim Hanser said Tuesday. "We explored city offices, looked at some private offices, but the best short-term solution was to rent a trailer and put it in the parking lot to make it as easily accessible as possible."

The city signed a six-month lease for the trailer after receiving four quotes, Hanser said. The total cost, which includes pumpout service for the trailer's bathroom, is expected to be $13,380, Hanser said.

To address other problems with city offices, Hanser has proposed the City Council appropriate $225,000 of state Local Capital Improvement Program funding to make improvements to City Hall and the police department headquarters, and to continue the work underway at the Stanton Building.

For the Stanton Building, Hanser estimated the city will need to spend $15,000 to remove the entire first floor ceiling so engineers will be able to better assess the structural issues with the floor above.

On the second floor of City Hall, where ODP is now located in what used to be the tax assessor's office, the office space needs "rehabilitation" to make it more suitable for daily use by ODP staff.

"The current space that these staff members are using at City Hall is not sufficient for them to effectively perform their daily job responsibilities, but they cannot occupy the remaining vacant offices on the second floor of City Hall until those offices are rehabilitated," Hanser wrote in a memo to Finance Director Jeff Smith last week.

The work at City Hall, which is estimated to cost $60,000, would include "stabilization of lead-containing wall and ceiling paint," priming and painting the walls, putting down new carpeting, installing a suspended ceiling with new lighting fixtures, and relocating various cables.

Hanser expected to present the plan to the City Council on Monday night in hopes it would authorize the work to begin shortly. But the council meeting Monday night was canceled because the meeting was not properly posted for public notice, a city attorney said.

Though the project is estimated to cost more than $20,000 - therefore requiring the city to put the work out to a public, competitive bid process - Hanser asked that the City Council waive the bid process and instead seek three written bids for the work, as is protocol for projects in the $3,000 to $20,000 range.

"I believe this is a reasonable compromise that balances the timeliness of ODP's needs to have sufficient workspace with the competitive bid process to ensure that the city is receiving a reasonable price for the work," Hanser wrote to Smith.

The work required at the police department headquarters - which is estimated to cost $150,000 - is focused on two staircases, Hanser wrote, the condition of which "is poor and presents a safety hazard for the staff ... who uses these stairs daily."

DPW solicited bids for the project in the fall, Hanser said, but the city held off on starting the work when the bids came back more costly than expected. Now, Hanser said he wants to re-bid the project with an expanded scope to include all exterior stairways at the police station that are in need of repair.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung