June 11, 2009
The Barraba council building will be redeveloped as part of a $165,000 project to turn it into the new regional records head office for Tamworth Regional Council.
Work starts this week on the first stage of the extensive upgrade of the 35-year-old brick building in Alice St to create a super-centre for all TRC archives and paper records.
TRC general manager Glenn Inglis says a new archives and records base will be created from the ghost of unused office spaces but the project will also create new modern spaces that are more customer-focused and friendly and improve services to the Barraba community.
Mr Inglis says the works will breathe new life into the building and give it a new modern purpose and active community role. The records archive will also generate new workplace responsibilities and roles for existing council staff in Barraba.
It will become the records storage headquarters for the TRC and comes in the wake of extensive internal planning to turn unused space into modern assets but also create one dedicated records collection area. TRC has also brought land next to the council building for about $28,000 to allow for future growth of the archives centre and other opportunities to expand TRC business.
The building was the former Barraba Shire offices and has a public foyer, general office area, Centrelink office, RTA services, council chambers, meeting room and engineering offices.
The building renovations will see a virtual demolition job done inside to create exciting new usable records storage and customer service functional spaces. About one-quarter of the floor space will be turned over to records storage. Corporate services director Steve Bartlett says the super-centre will store all records from the five former councils pre-amalgamation and many files accumulated since 2004. They will be mainly paper files and include registers, applications, correspondence and journals. At the moment, hundreds of tonnes of files are kept in about eight different TRC locations.
Mr Inglis said the move made great economic sense and will upgrade facilities and reception areas to conform to new standards. It will create nearly 400 square metres of usable, 50% of which had been under-utilised for the past five years.
The old oil heating system will be replaced with a more environmentally-friendly system of reverse cycle air conditioning and a new 137 square metre records storage will be created by specialist works to demolish walls, block out external windows, seal the concrete floor, and construct new walls and doors.
A customer service upgrade will provide a new 45 square metre reception area by demolishing existing walls, putting in new walls and doors in the reception area, building a new counter, and installing new floor coverings and a new suspended ceiling. Another stage will include data and electrical cabling, lighting, painting, the installation of new automatic doors and upgrade of the disabled access.
Mr Bartlett said the works are expected to be complete in about two months.