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Legislators Start Moving to New Home
Lansing State Journal, Egan Paul, August 17, 1999 - While construction continued
Monday, state House members began moving into their new 14-story office building
across from the Capitol.
Five offices moved Monday, and House managers plan to move five offices each day
between now and Labor Day. In all, 110 lawmakers and about 550 staff members
will make the move.
``It puts us pretty much right on schedule,'' House Clerk Gary Randall said. ``We
never anticipated that everything would be done by the time we started to move.''
The city issued a temporary occupancy permit for the building on Friday. It will
provide a final occupancy permit after an inspection within the next couple of
weeks, officials said.
Workers on Monday were installing tile on the main floor and completing interior walls
and doors on other floors as movers and legislators' staffs brought files, pictures, fax
machines and other items to their new offices.
On the outside of the building, workers still had to fill in a strip of exterior wall that
stretches from ground to roof where a hoist was located.
Lansing-area lawmakers are expected to move late this week or early next week. Their
telephone numbers, post office box numbers and e-mail addresses won't change.
In the past, House members frequently have shifted offices depending on seniority and
which offices are vacant. Republican offices are in the Romney Building, Democratic
of fices are in the Roosevelt Building and members from each party have offices in the
Capitol.
In the new building, each office is permanently assigned to one legislative district,
starting with District 1 on the fifth floor and moving up to District 110 on the 14th.
Lansing-area lawmakers will occupy the ninth and 10th floors. Every lawmaker's office
has a view of the
Capitol.
There will be more mixing among Democrats and Republicans and the only moves
required will be when one representative leaves office and a successor arrives. In
those cases, even many of the files will remain.
``We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, every two years, making
these moves,'' Randall said. ``This for all practical purposes eliminates that.''
The House is leasing the new building from developers Gary Granger and Joel Ferguson.
House managers still are negotiating with the developers about when rent payments of
about $4 million a year will start, Randall said.
House workers, assisted by a moving company, had almost no furniture to move
Monday. That's because the new building already is outfitted with handcrafted desks,
credenzas and armoires for lawmakers and $9.5 million worth of furniture for the
staff and public.
The furniture deal drew controversy because of the price and the fact the House awarded
it to Steelcase Inc. of Grand Rapids without calling for price bids.
``I wouldn't say it's spartan, but by the same token I don't feel like I'm sitting in a palace
by any means,'' said Keith Carey, an aide to Rep. Scott Schackleton, R-Sault Ste. Marie.
Jon Hansen, an aide to Rep. Andy Neumann, D-Alpena, pushed Neumann's old office
chair along the sidewalk to the new building from the Roosevelt Building because
Neumann has vowed not to use his new $875 chair.
Still, ``we're excited to the degree that we'll have actual modern equipment,''
Hansen said.
The old furniture is expected to be sold at auction.
The lawmakers whose offices moved Monday were all from northern Michigan or the
Upper Peninsula, and none was in Lansing to see it happen.
Rebecca Casler, another Neumann aide, said she'll miss her friends on the sixth floor
of the Roosevelt Building and the camaraderie that existed in an all-Democrat building.
``It's going to be different,'' said Carey, whose representative's office will be the only
Republican one on the 14th floor. ``We don't obviously do any really sensitive work
out of the office.''
