The construction of the new Roanoke City Hall finished under budget, allowing for additional updates.

These possible updates were referred to as “wish list items” during a presentation by Assistant City Manager Gary Johnson at the Roanoke City Council meeting Sept. 24.

The original budget for building City Hall was $18.4 million, and the project’s spending added up to just under $18.2 million, according to Johnson.

“I think in today’s building economy, that's a pretty good, pretty good fee, if you will, to keep it under budget because there's so many variables,” Johnson said. “In this building being so unique, there's a lot of things; it's hard to predict when you’re not building the standard school or the standard city hall.”

With the remaining $284,000, Johnson plans to update the finish on the terrazzo flooring. Currently, the terrazzo, which consists of chips of marble or other suitable material in concrete, is finished with a wax coating. This requires yearly refinishing, which costs roughly $5,000 each time. Johnson instead recommends diamond finishing, which can be taken care of in-house.

Another allocation of the remaining money is adding stage power to the plaza. This would save the cost of renting a generator for outdoor events, which costs roughly $1,000 each time, according to Johnson.

Other updates include soundproofing the utility building, programming the water feature to change with music cues, purchasing additional chairs and tables for the community room, adding furniture to the north balcony and purchasing a stock of additional ceiling tiles for the council chambers.

Johnson is also looking into the possibility of moving the dropbox to deposit inside the building or building a kiosk for citizens to pay fines, rent events and pay other city-related costs.

These changes would total roughly $78,000, leaving the rest in the city fund for future projects, Johnson said.

“You know we're going to have more building in the future coming,” Johnson said. “We're going to be building a new police court facility down the road in a few years and some other stuff, and that can be kind of seed money.”

The new Roanoke City Hall opened in May and is part of the growing Roanoke City Center.