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Councillors will be returning to their former digs in Calgary’s Historic City Hall once $400,000 renovations are complete on the sandstone-clad building in 2020.

Council was forced to relocate temporarily in 2016 to make way for work to rehabilitate the hall’s crumbling exterior. The restoration is budgeted at $34 million.

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While most council members have expressed a strong desire to return to the historic building, some have grown accustomed to the more spacious temporary offices on the fourth floor of the city’s administration building, just east of Historic City Hall.

Further complicating the return to an already tight space, around 10 support staff members have been added to the office of the councillors.

“Both the office of the councillors and the mayor’s office have experienced a little bit of staff growth since they left and they currently would not fit back in the space they left behind,” said Darrel Bell, acting director of facility management.

Bell said the plan is to reconfigure the old hall’s first floor, previously occupied by the city clerk’s office, to add three offices to accommodate the increased staff numbers; a new kitchen and a universal washroom will also be added to the first floor.

“I believe $400,000 will be sufficient to do the work,” Bell said.