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The fourth-floor conference room at City Hall is being renovated.

The new year will bring nicer surroundings to St. Joseph City Hall.

The fourth-floor conference room will receive fresh paint, a new ceiling grid and tiles, carpet, vertical window blinds, a soundproof west wall and doors for the room’s two entrances as part of a monthlong project.

The refurbished room will have a more formal feel than before, when it resembled a classroom.

“It will look different,” Communications Manager Mary Robertson said. “We do plan to get new furniture in there, more geared to a boardroom meeting space, as opposed to a training room.”

The room hosts meetings for city committees, citizen groups and training sessions for city staff, among other things. Workers from E.L. Crawford Construction started renovations Dec. 8 and should finish around Jan. 15.

The renovation costs are expected to be $18,311. The city’s Capital Improvements Program sales tax fund will cover $10,600 of the costs.

The project is part of the plan that upgraded the multimedia in the Council Chamber in late 2007.

In addition, the room will receive new furniture and a ceiling-mounted LCD projector for which the city is taking bids. The costs associated with the furniture and projector are not included in the $18,311 project cost. Ms. Robertson said the items would be purchased with maintenance funding that was budgeted for upgrades to the main lobby.

Clinton Thomas can be reached

at clintonthomas@npgco.com.