IRMO, S.C. — Irmo town leaders are ready for a new space to call home. They're currently working out the details for a new town hall.
For decades, the space has served as a center of civic activities. That's according to Irmo mayor Barry Walker.
Now, to meet the growing needs of the community, town leaders want a new place to meet and work, encompassing about 10,000 square feet.
Councilman Erik Sickinger tells News 19 he's ready for a change, wanting to focus on functionality over design.
"I think the most important part is that it is being built for that office space, however, when you're doing new building, it's important to take into consideration other ways that this building can be used and our expectation is that the building will be used for community gathering, classroom style situations," Sickinger said.
The mayor explains he wants to use donated and purchased land for the relocation, but then preserve the current town hall, repurposing the space.
Mayor Walker tells News 19 he requested money from the state house budget for this project, in addition to requesting funds from the federal government.
"Those are monies that are available and if we don't go for it, other municipalities will," Walker said.
With the help of state representative Nathan Ballentine, Governor McMaster signed off on $500K for the Irmo town hall project.
"It's not always something that we can do, but when the economy has been good and when we've taken care of all the other big priorities it's great when us as elected officials, whether its the house or senate can work alongside our local community leaders," Ballentine said.
Walker explains South Carolina congressional representatives in D.C. put the request into the federal budget for $1.6M.
Walker tells News 19 the remaining $1.5M will likely come from their existing town budget.
He adds that he intends to formally put the engineering and design out for bid at Tuesday's council meeting.
Walker explains he hopes construction can start sometime this fall.