CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. — The City of Crystal River is hoping to secure funding to help bring back its city hall. City officials were already eyeing a new city hall before Hurricane Idalia caused enough damage to close the building.

What You Need To Know

  • Crystal River city officials are asking for $10 million in funding to bring back their city hall

  • The building has sat empty since Hurricane Idalia flooded the property

  • City officials were already eyeing a new city hall before Idalia, with flooding issues in past storms
  • Plans include raising the current city hall so that it will be safe from flooding during future storms

The asking price to bring back the office space is $10 million, with plans to raise the building and make it less susceptible to flooding.

On the outside, the city hall looks pretty ordinary. It’s not until you get a little closer do you realize something’s different.

“It’s not ‘if,’ it’s just ‘when’ it’s going to get flooded out again,” city manager Douglas Baber said. 

For four months, Crystal River City Hall has sat empty, forcing its staff to find workspace elsewhere.

“We’ve got a list of appropriation requests that we’ve put together,” Baber said. “One of them, in which, is a $10 million appropriation request for the City of Crystal River to rebuild a city hall.”

Baber, who entered the building for the first time since Idalia, says it’s haunting.

“You look at this place and you look around at the walls and you can see from one end of the building to the other,” he said. “It’s kind of creepy the way that it’s just a hollow of a shell.”

The building has been remediated from top to bottom. The walls have been gutted. The floors have been stripped. The building is almost unrecognizable.

“This is the Crystal River chambers,” Baber said. “This room took on about 18 inches of flood water as well as sewage and chemicals from the auto body shop across the street.”

Baber says the plan is to lift the building, preventing any future threats of flooding. A fix that they have been looking to make for some time.

“This is how it got fixed last time,” Baber said, while touring the building. “These are Hermine repairs and I’m not knocking anybody for any of the damage and repairs but it would just be more of this if we decide to go back in here. It’s just not a healthy building and I don’t think it was healthy before the storm.”

As for a timeline, Baber says it will probably take about three years to complete. But he’s hopeful of having the building brought back to its former glory and more.

“They were used to their routines in this building since the ‘60s,” he says. “Some of them have worked here for over 25 years and overnight that just changed. They are a resilient crew, as well, and we’re going to get thru this together.”

Baber says he will be traveling up to Tallahassee here towards the end of January. In an effort to receive that funding to bring back his city hall.