New London - The partial evacuation of the Stanton Building, the inadequate conditions of spare office space at City Hall and the as-of-yet unscheduled historic restoration of City Hall have created a space crunch for city employees and prompted the City Council to seek alternatives.

Since the 18-foot-long crack in a concrete floor of the Stanton Building at 111 Union St. was discovered last month, the Office of Development and Planning has been relocated from its offices on the second floor of the Stanton Building to City Hall, 10 employees from other departments were relocated and the city has had a temporary office space trailer set up in the parking lot adjacent to the Stanton Building to house four or five employees from the Building Inspection Division through this summer.

But the City Hall offices that the ODP is now using are inadequate, said Department of Public Works Director Tim Hanser, who 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.

The proposed work to City Hall would cost about $60,000, Hanser said, but the council chose instead to pursue a different option.

On Monday night, the City Council voted unanimously to request that the city administration look into renting private commercial space downtown to use as city offices.

"The problem is going to last a number of months, if not years, while we sort out the condition of our public buildings," said Councilor Michael Passero, who proposed the idea. "We should consider renting office space in the city for our employees and use that as swing office space while we're repairing or reconsidering what we're going to do with some of our public buildings."

Office of Development and Planning Director Tammy Daugherty presented the council with unofficial quotes for yearlong leases for about 4,000 square feet of downtown office space, ranging from about $50,000 without utilities to $86,000 including utilities.

Compounding the space crunch is the City Council's commitment to conducting a historically-accurate restoration of City Hall. The council received a thorough report on the condition of the building months ago, but has not determined the scope of the work it wants to have completed.

"I'm concerned about moving people out before we even have a plan to renovate" City Hall, Councilor Erica Richardson said. "Wait to move them out so we can get this building renovated. Pick a time that we're going to renovate it, pick the bonding or wherever we're going to come up with the money to do this ... that's when we start moving people out of here. Right now, I see us paying two separate bills and paying one of them a lot longer than necessary."

The council on Monday approved Hanser's request for $15,000 to remove the entire first floor ceiling at the Stanton Building so engineers will be able to better assess the structural issues with the floor above.

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."

The Department of Public Works 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.

The City Council on Monday night voted to refer Hanser's request for police headquarters to its Public Works committee.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung