Billings city departments leave Miller Building until new city hall opens

Four city of Billings departments had to find new homes this week, but it's only temporary.

The departments were housed in the Miller Building in downtown Billings, where the city is leasing space from Yellowstone County. The departments are supposed to move into the new city hall building, but construction is not complete.

“Yellowstone County purchased the Miller Building a while ago and we've been leasing from them. But now it's time to move out of there so that they can do a demo to start to get ready for their move over there," said Billings Assistant City Administrator Kevin Iffland at the current City Hall on Tuesday.

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That means the city's Planning, Building, Code Enforcement, and Community Development divisions will be temporarily housed elsewhere.

“Community Development is strictly working from home at this time,” Iffland said.

The Planning division is in a conference hall at the current City Hall. Residents can approach the Finance division counter in the lobby to reach them.

Code Enforcement is being housed at the Crime Prevention Center on Third Avenue North while the Building Division's temporary office is now in the computer lab at the Billings Public Library.

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“We will be here probably about three months,” said the city's building manager, Jessica Fust.

It means a big change for residents who need to work with these departments.

“Our new offices at City Hall aren’t ready for us yet,” Fust added.

Come November, that will hopefully change as Iffland said that's when the city plans to move most of its employees to the new City Hall, currently known as the Stillwater Building.

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"And then public and employees functioning out of the new City Hall by the end of February," said Iffland. "That's, that's something that we've never had. I mean, so we're excited about that."

It will be the first time that most of the city's departments and employees will be all housed under one roof.

"This will be just a one-stop shop. We've got Building, Planning, and Public Works, Engineering all in the same area on the same floor (5th) of this building," Iffland said.

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After 29 years of working for the city, Iffland said it's a big step forward.

"We've remodeled closets to put people in. We remodeled an old vault on second floor of this building (old City Hall) and had to cut through about a foot of concrete to make a door to make an office. I mean, we truly were busting at the seams. We just had no place to put people," said Iffland. "So this is just a welcome addition where we can go have room, have spaces for people to do their work in and again, just be more efficient. It's very exciting for me to see this happen in my time here."