RENOVATION REPORT: Government building will focus on customer service

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A building being renovated for the Mecklenburg County Land Use and Environmental Services Agency and some city of Charlotte departments is expected to improve the services the agencies provide.

The 101,000-square-foot building at 2145 Suttle Ave. is scheduled to open Jan. 4.  The renovation work is part of an customer service initiative called “Bringing Mecklenburg County to You” that was developed by county Manager Dena Diorio.

LUESA and some city offices will be leaving the 60-year-old Hal Marshall Center at 700 N. Tryon St.. The county plans on selling the property, which it has used since the late 1980s.

Acquiring the new building, which formerly housed the Charlotte School of Law and was constructed in 2007, cost $16 million. The renovations will add about $3.9 million to the pricetag. The contractor is Rodgers Leeper, a joint venture between R.J. Leeper Construction LLC and Rodgers Inc.

The city of Charlotte is spending $40,000 to install a computer network to the building.

The bulk of the renovation work is being done on the first floor, which is for customer service, said Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi, LUESA’s director. More than 450 employees will be moving to the new building, he said.

“The convenience is going to be something like a Starbucks or a Panera Bread. We aren’t going to be selling coffee, but the service will be at the same level,” he said.

To improve customer service, six customer service liaisons and a manager to oversee them have been hired.  They will work on the first floor and will be available to answer people’s questions and point them in the right direction. The liaisons started training in early October.

“We will work hard to get (customers) the answers they are looking for faster,” Gujjarlapudi said.

The work on the first floor involved removing walls to make most of it a large open area. It will be a lot more welcoming than the Hal Marshall Center because it has more windows to allow light in, Gujjarlapudi said.

The first floor will have five conference rooms with large smart TVs for video conferencing, so if an architect or anyone else needs to be contacted remotely to go over plans, the customers can do that in one of those rooms, Gujjarlapudi said. There will also be desks and tables for workspace and meetings,  he said.

“The customer service center is like a welcoming space with technology,” he said.

The first floor will also have two labs for LUESA’s air-quality and water-quality work.

“On the second, third and fourth floors, to minimize costs, we hardly did any demolition. We wanted to save taxpayer dollars,” Gujjarlapudi said.

The second floor will be for county code enforcement, Charlotte Water and the city’s zoning permitting office. The building will also house offices for the city’s Engineering and Property Management Department.

Gujjarlapudi said the renovated building will be a better environment for the staff than the Hal Marshall Center because it has more windows and people who have been working in basement offices will be in regular offices.

Gujjarlapudi’s office is in the Hal Marshall Center basement.

Project description: New customer service center and offices for the Mecklenburg County Land Use and Environmental Services Agency and some city of Charlotte services.

Address: 2145 Suttle Ave., Charlotte

Architect:  Gensler

Contractor: Rodgers Leeper

Space: 101,000 square feet

Building Cost: $16 million

Renovation Cost: Up to $3.9 million

Construction start: August

Completion Date: Late December

See below for Mecklenburg County’s video on the new building: