Grantsville City is running out of office space. The city attorney has already been relegated to a trailer in back of City Hall, the police department uses its office as a detention facility for juvenile offenders, city employees work nearly elbow to elbow in an open bull pen, and planning commission meetings are played out for a standing-room-only audience in the courtroom.

Now, however, some relief may be on the way.

At the City Council meeting Nov. 7, Mayor Byron Anderson proposed buying or leasing a former clinic on Apple Street, next to the senior citizens center, as a stop gap measure to house either the police department or the city library.

The new building would give the city some breathing room while they work with architectural firm MHTN to come up with what the city needs in terms of new facilities and a way to finance them, said Anderson.

"A city of our size, in terms of number of people currently employed, should have 6,000 square feet of office space, according to MHTN," said Anderson. "That's about three times what we have now."

The building on Apple Street is currently owned by the Boyer Company. It is 3,100 square feet and was recently appraised at $268,000.

"It would cost less to remodel if we moved the police department," said Anderson. "But the courts, for security reasons, would like the police department to stay with them at City Hall."

Some of the walls of the Apple Street building could be removed to make a home for the library, said Anderson. The senior center is right next door for seniors who like to use the library, and there are several schools nearby, which could be a plus. Utah State University is also looking for a classroom that is not in the high school -- a project that could be accomplished with a simple remodeling, according to Anderson.

The council requested that Anderson come back with a firm estimate of the costs to remodel the building for both the library and the police department.

Anderson and other city officials are working with MHTN on a concept design and cost estimate for future facilities that would include the needs of City Hall, the library, the police department, the recreation center and the senior citizens center.

MHTN is the architectural firm that designed the new Grantsville Fire Department. MHTN has also designed the new Tooele County courthouse, the county health building and most of the new schools in the county, including under-construction Stansbury High School. MHTN is also designing the new emergency operations center for Tooele County.

tgillie@tooeletranscript.com