Planning documents suggest Newcastle council is spending $140,000 on a temporary staff kitchen in its new office in Newcastle West.
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The council has submitted and approved a $140,000 development application for the kitchen, which will be in use for a few months until the "commercial" kitchen on the top floor is completed late this year.
Chief executive officer Jeremy Bath said the cost of the kitchen had been revised to $60,000 in August.
Most of the more than 400 staff now employed in the Civic precinct will move on October 8, but work on fitting out the new building's ground and sixth floors will continue until February.
"As planned, the fit-out is being done in two stages. Levels 2-5 now and levels 1 and 6 from October to February," a council spokesperson said in a statement.
"A temporary kitchen will be available for staff use until a permanent one is completed later this year given it's on level six.
"This will consist of existing appliances and materials from the Round House and Fred Ash Buildings plus refrigerators which will be used in the permanent staff kitchen."
The temporary kitchen is another extra cost for a project which has grown well beyond the $7 million included in a 2017 business case justifying the move.
Call centre staff will work from a shopfront in Beaumont Street, Hamilton, until the ground floor of the new building is ready.
The council's contracts register, which includes contracts worth more than $150,000, shows that in the past year it has agreed to spend $9.055 million on the building fit-out, $601,000 for a principal design consultant, $253,000 for design and DA documentation and $179,000 for the supply of LAN hardware.
The council spokesperson said the final bill for DA documentation would be "significantly less" than $253,000.
It is unclear if variations in the fit-out contract will alter the final cost up or down. It is also unknown how much the council is spending on new furniture in the building.
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The council has entered into more than a dozen other technology-related contracts this year as it restructures its IT department, changes computers and moves to cloud-based data storage.
Some of these contracts include $733,000 for video conferencing and audio-visual systems; $460,000 for the supply and service of "multi-function devices"; $2.781 million for computers, laptops and tablets; $602,000 for firewall hardware; $2.05 million for managed wifi services and support services to "a range of council sites"; and $417,000 for a fibre network build and access network to four council buildings.
The council spokesperson said these contracts either did not relate to the office move or "would have occurred regardless of the move as part of overall IT and AV upgrades to our more than 25 staff locations".
"The City of Newcastle was intending to refurbish its current administration building prior to the decision to instead relocate to 12 Stewart Avenue," the spokesperson said.
"Councillors were told when considering the move that the cost of refurbishing the Roundhouse alone was approximately $7 million.
"This cost would not have included costs associated with relocating staff while the refurbishment occurred. Had we gone down this path, we would have continued to have suffered significant operational inefficiencies from locating staff in three buildings instead of one."
The 2017 business case for the move included renting out the vacated City Administration Centre "Roundhouse", but the council sold the CAC this year to Syrian billionaire Ghassan Aboud for $16.5 million.
Independent councillors tried unsuccessfully this year to force the council to produce and make public an updated business case listing all the move costs.
In March, the council refused to answer a series of questions from the Newcastle Herald about the total bill for the move.
The council has entered into a 15-year lease to rent the southern half of the building and one floor of the north wing for an estimated total of $2.4 million a year.
The temporary kitchen is on the second floor of the north wing, space which the council intends to sub-let.
Chief executive officer Jeremy Bath asked the developer, Spartohori, to add a sixth floor spanning the length of the building in late 2017.
The extra space includes suites for Mr Bath and lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes, rooftop terraces, a commercial kitchen, a theatrette, meeting rooms and a waiting room.
The council said on Tuesday that it was placing the Fred Ash building and the adjoining Bennett Building and the Clarendon Hotel on the market after withdrawing them from sale last year.
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Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
