Bessemer City Hall
- This article is about the current City Hall, built in 2016. For previous government buildings, see Bessemer City Hall (disambiguation).
The Bessemer City Hall is a 3-story, 29,000 square-foot government office building constructed in 2016 for the City of Bessemer.
The building replaced the 1941 Bessemer City Hall a block away, which had been built by the Works Progress Administration, and was deemed to be in a "deplorable state" by 2012. The city looked at several alternatives for relocating city offices before settling on a new building on the site of the former Bessemer General Hospital. The city refinanced existing bond debts to begin construction on the $5.6 million project in 2015.
Carl Exford of Exford Architects designed the post-modern neoclassical building which features a copper-colored domed cupola atop a shallow hipped roof. The brick walls are pierced with tinted windows and trimmed in cast stone. The southwest facade on 3rd Avenue is symmetrical, with a central pediment supported on four slender full-height columns. The northeast facade, facing an alley, has a matching pediment supported on two large brick piers topped with short round columns.
On the interior, the first floor houses the offices for the Bessemer City Clerk, and the finance department, as well as a large public meeting room. The Bessemer City Council chambers are on the second floor along with offices and conference rooms for the council and the departments of economic development and information technology. The mayor's office is on the third floor.
A. G. Gaston Construction and SARCOR served as project managers for construction, which was carried out by the Clements Dean Building Company of Wilsonville.
References
- Norris, Toraine (May 15, 2012) "Bessemer council authorizes mayor to explore purchasing church for new city hall." The Birmingham News
- Reed, Jon (May 28, 2015) "Bessemer breaks ground on new city hall." The Birmingham News