After years of seeking higher ground, the Borough of Etna purchased a building March 7 that eventually will become the municipality’s new headquarters.
The location, at 30 Pine St., sits almost directly above the current borough building at 437 Butler St. The 47,570-square-foot building is an industrial space formerly occupied by Forms Surfaces, an architectural materials manufacturer. But the new building has one key difference: It is out of the borough’s floodplain.
Council President Dave Becki said in his more than three decades on council, the idea of moving to a higher elevation has come up several times, especially after more devastating floods in 1986 and 2004.
Though the current borough building can be equipped with flood-proofing materials, Becki said administrators need prior warning to set up the hardware, which ultimately makes the building inaccessible. Though this protects the structure, without a command center, he said floods are all the more difficult to manage.
Aside from the new building’s strategic location, Becki said it also will provide more space for the borough, which he said has “outgrown” its current offices. He said he will miss the old building, in which he has worked for his entire tenure, but thinking of the building like a “new home,” Becki said he is excited for the move.
“It’ll just be a better work environment for our employees and a better place to have meetings,” Becki said.
Mayor Robert Tuñón said the acquisition is a “big accomplishment.”
Located next to the Etna Pool and Playground, the community’s main recreational area, Tuñón said he is looking forward to having a proper sort of “municipal complex” in the borough.
Mary Ellen Ramage, the borough’s manager, has worked for Etna since the 1970s. She began her tenure at the now-demolished previous borough building, which was on Locust Street where the Garden of Etna currently sits.
The move to a new space in concurrence with the ongoing construction of the Etna Center for Community gives her “goosebumps,” she said.
Helping to manage Etna through decades of population loss and economic decline, Ramage said she now is witnessing many things she never thought she would see in her community.
The move will not take place immediately, she said. The borough will have to perform some renovations and figure out the logistics of relocating its administration, public works department and police force.
Once the move is complete, she said the current borough building likely will be utilized by the Etna Volunteer Fire Department, which resides next door.
“It’s really, really exciting for me to finally see us in a permanent home,” Ramage said.
The timeline for the move is not exactly clear, Tuñón said, but it likely will take place in phases.