ELKINS — After being closed for more than a year, Elkins City Hall is on track to reopen before Aug.31, 2026, with Phase One of the renovation work to be completed by the end of October, officials said this week.

During this week’s Elkins City Council meeting, City Operations Manager Michael Kesecker said the city would begin advertising the bidding for Phase Two’s work on Sept. 19. The bids will be opened on Oct. 15.

“I’m very pleased to announce that Phase One of City Hall will be substantially complete by the end of October and is currently under budget,” Kesecker said. “And I am also pleased to announce that there is the aroma of fresh paint throughout the walls of City Hall currently. So we are definitely moving in a very good direction.”

Elkins City Hall has been closed for restoration and recovery work since Aug. 31, 2024, after a sewage overflow incident flooded the building’s basement and first floor, including the Elkins Police Department.

When asked by Third Ward council member Christopher Lowther whether the EPD will be able to move back into City Hall once Phase One is complete, Kesecker gave a confident, “Yes.” The EPD has been stationed in rented modular trailers behind Elkins City Hall since September 2024.

“When Phase One is finished, it might not be like the very next day, but relativity within a couple weeks… They’ll be able to move back in,” Kesecker said. “What we’re hoping by doing that, is that saves us some money on those trailers they’re renting, as well.”

Kesecker stressed that while the contractor was using the phrase “substantially complete” to describe the end of Phase One, it still meant the city could be able to move back into certain office spaces.

Phase Two was described by Kesecker as the “bulk of the work” of the project, with it being the biggest and most expensive phase in the restoration of City Hall.

The main focuses in Phase Two, as Kesecker explained, will include work on City Hall’s elevator; the entirety of the second and third floors of the building; all of the restrooms on the second and third floors to ensure they are ADA compliant; the replacement of the building’s former loading dock to create an ADA compliant rampway; and the masonry work and stone-washing on the outside of the building.

“Phase Two will really be, once it gets to ‘substantially complete,’ will be where people drive by and say, ‘Wow. They have done a lot of work on this building,'” Kesecker said. “Right now, unless you’re inside, you don’t really see it.”

Though the damage from the Aug. 31, 2024 sewage overflow incident mostly impacted the basement and first floor, it was determined that work on the entirety of City Hall was necessary to ensure the longevity of the building.

“If we’re going to stay in this building long term, the building’s 100 years old, our architect has supplied me with an email telling me, we do this work, that building will stand for another hundred years,” Kesecker told council during their Oct. 10, 2024 meeting. “That’s how strong, structurally, this building is. I don’t think we need to cut corners. I think we need to look at every space in that building, turning it into a viable space that’s usable.”

During this week’s meeting, Fourth Ward Council Member Nanci Bross-Fregonara asked Kesecker what the entire project’s completion date looked like, to which Kesecker replied that it was estimated that work would be done by “late spring, early summer of next year,” before the Aug. 31, 2026 deadline.

“Barring some catastrophe, we will meet that Aug. 31 deadline easily,” Kesecker said.