101 Ash Street city office project

The city deserves an Onion for its handling of the 101 Ash Street office building acquisition and its missteps in redesigning the interior for more city employees that were originally planned. The taxpayers face a huge funding bill to both buy and remodel the building, far in excess of the building’s roughly $70 million appraisal. The biggest mistake was made in trying to remodel the interior without taking into account the amount of asbestos from the 1960s building. The issue only arose because construction crews breached the walls and ceilings and disturbed the asbestos coating. There seems to be a systemic failure on the part of city departments and a handsoff attitude on the part of the mayor’s and City Council’s offices in asking questions at the earliest stage of this project. There are several other recent real estate scandals that show the same sort of poor management and political oversight the taxpayers have a right to expect.