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Officials will be moving back into Los Angeles City Hall in July on schedule after a $299-million, three-year project that has been as much a modernization as a seismic retrofitting.
Mayor Richard Riordan and City Controller Rick Tuttle wanted to limit the project to retrofitting, which was spurred by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Five years ago, Riordan and Tuttle named a panel of experts that recommended a $165-million budget confining work to earthquake safety, and probably would have postponed occupancy of the upper stories for years.
But the City Council, and especially its president, John Ferraro, wanted no part of such restricted work, reasoning that it was also important to update the building for the 21st century.
The council mandated a more extensive project, originally pricing it at $273 million, to include new food service facilities, computer- ready offices, additional staircases, central air conditioning and other renovations. Later the city quietly added $26 million more, some of that for converting the fourth floor to council office suites.
Federal grants totaling $126 million and municipal seismic bonds approved by voters financed most of the work.
A tour of the building recently found hundreds of workers putting the finishing touches on what Chief Legislative Analyst Ronald F. Deaton, who has overseen the project for the council, called "rebuilding the building inside-out."
Richard Heim, regional executive officer for the company that has done most of the work, Clark Construction Group, said that up to 400 people are...