New London — The City Council on Monday night unanimously authorized $3 million in bonding to fund the planning, design and construction phases of a historic restoration of City Hall, and approved another $15,655 to make immediate repairs to some City Hall offices as the city grapples with a space crunch.

Authorizing the $3 million in bonding, which the City Council did as part of its consent agenda and without public discussion, allows the council to move forward with its commitment to conduct a historically accurate restoration of the disheveled City Hall.

Since an 18-foot-long crack in a concrete floor of the Stanton Building, 111 Union St., was discovered in February, city employees have been relocated to temporary offices elsewhere, creating a logistical headache.

The Office of Development and Planning has been relocated from its offices in the Stanton Building to the second floor of 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.

The council was presented with two options Monday night: appropriate state Local Capital Improvement Program funding to make improvements to now-vacant offices on the second floor of City Hall to give ODP more space, or authorize the city to lease privately owned office space downtown.

“We’re looking at a major renovation of this building and I don’t see our employees being able to work through that productively,” Councilor Michael Passero said during Monday’s meeting in City Hall. “It is an unfortunate reality that we have gotten ourselves into a situation where we really do not have office space for our employees to work out of that is conducive to a work environment and I think they deserve better.”

The council on Monday approved spending $15,655 to make improvements to the vacant offices on the second floor of City Hall, including the removal of old carpeting from the offices, replacing it with carpet tiles and stabilizing lead paint in the offices to comply with a previous abatement order from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

After about 45 minutes of debate on the subject, the council tabled the lease proposal that it had asked ODP Director Tammy Daugherty to prepare until its next meeting.

The work approved by the council Monday night is not expected to have any significant impact on the historic restoration, Community Development Coordinator Tom Bombria said.

In December, the council’s Public Works Committee received a report from Wank Adams Slavin Associates, a New York-based architecture firm contracted by the city to conduct a conditions assessment of City Hall, that outlined the current state of the building, its bones and its mechanical systems.

Now, with a funding source in place, the firm can start preparing detailed plans and specifications for the renovation.

The building was designed by architect James Sweeney in 1912 to replace the municipal building that had stood on State Street since 1856. Its grand Renaissance Revival design is intended to demonstrate a civic pride in the architecture of the city, according to New London Landmarks.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung