Bend, Ore. – The city of Bend has outgrown City Hall, where it’s so crowded that some staffers are working at desks set up in hallways while others are sharing offices with multiple people.
But the city’s solution is just what the doctor ordered. The Bulletin reports the city recently purchased a former doctor’s office on NW Wall Street for about $1.15 million, which will boost office spaces for a growing city staff. The roughly 3,400-square-foot property was home to Wall Street Family Practice but will eventually be used to ease crowding in existing city offices, said Jon Skidmore, assistant city manager for Bend.
The city staff has grown by nearly 100 employees in the past decade, causing City Hall to overflow to offices across the street, according to city records.
Bend’s population has grown, too — by nearly 30,000 people in the past 15 years, increasing the workload for city staff. In that same time, the city’s human resources and finance departments have grown to keep up with the demand, Skidmore said. Meanwhile, more requests for building, planning and engineering permits has increased the volume of work for the city’s planning and permitting departments.
Eventually, the growing demands of Bend residents could warrant a new City Hall entirely, Skidmore said. There aren’t any plans in the works, but more space for staff could be necessary in the future.
Now that the city has purchased the doctor’s office, there’s only one building left — Mirror Pond Cleaners & Shirt Laundry — for the city to purchase before it owns the entire block, Skidmore said. There are no plans to purchase that building at the moment, he said.
