A recent renovation to the basement of Town Hall converted what for years had been storage space into new offices for the Town of Clayton’s Inspections Department. The inspectors moved into their new space in late December and spent the past six weeks settling in.
The new office is approximately 630 square feet and currently houses eight inspectors with room for a few more. Robert Yarborough, Building Codes Enforcement Supervisor, said the larger spaces will allow the Town to add up to three additional inspectors without having to physically split the team into multiple locations.
Additionally, the relocation of the Inspections Department freed up space for the expansion of other departments, including planning, engineering and the new environmental group which on-boarded in January.
The design of the new Inspections office was completed before anyone had ever heard of COVID. Once the pandemic hit, the office area was redesigned to include private cubicles for each inspector. Yarborough himself designed, custom cut and installed each desk for his employees to aid in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.
Other benefits to the new office design include sufficient space to allow for large, adjustable vertical plan review tables; direct access to the office area from the exterior of the building, which reduces greatly the distribution of unwanted muddy tracks throughout the rest of the facility; and desk space that allows for large format video monitors which can accommodate digital plan reviews.
The Town contracted with Jeff Speight Enterprises to complete the renovation, which also included construction of a restroom and a complete remodel of existing storage rooms that consolidated files into one room rather than two. The file room consolidation freed up a 22-foot by 20-foot space that also was remodeled to accommodate employees and contractors involved with the new Wastewater Reclamation Facility Project.
The total cost of the project was $73,600.
