St. Augustine’s City Hall, which shares space with retail stores, state offices and the Lightner Museum, is set to close this holiday weekend in order to tent for termites.
The massive, historic building in downtown St. Augustine will be tented between 6 p.m. Thursday and 6 p.m. Monday evening. City general services director Jim Piggott said the move has become somewhat of a routine.
“(It happens) probably every eight to 10 to 12 years, if not longer, depending on the termite situation in the building. The last time this building was tented was either in 2002 or 2003,” he said.
Piggott said most of St. Augustine’s historic buildings were built with wood, and in Florida that means termites are always possible.
With a building of this size, Piggott said, getting the tenting scheduled and the building ready took a lot of planning. He said city officials started preparing a year ago.
“The amount of tenting material, road closures, changing different roads from one ways to two ways, coordinating with the police department and parking meters, it’s a lot of coordinating that has to go into this project,” he said.
As the building is tented, surrounding streets will also be affected. Granada Street will be closed from city hall to DeSoto Place, and Cordova Street’s southbound lane will also be closed.
Ryan Benk can be reached at rbenk@wjct.org, 904-358-6319 or on Twitter @RyanMichaelBenk
