A major upgrade for historic city hall: Almost 9,000 roofing tiles will be installed over the next six weeks

Aaron Crutchfield/Atascadero News • Tiles sit on top of the dome at Historic City Hall waiting to be installed. Almost 9,000 tiles sit there and on the fourth floor, waiting for crews to begin installing them on Monday.

ATASCADERO — The Atascadero City Administration Building’s naked roof is about to get a new set of clothes.

Well, a partially new set of clothes. On Monday, workers will begin reinstalling roofing tiles on the upper dome of the historic building.

The building was severely damaged in the 2003 San Simeon earthquake. At that time, many of the building’s tiles were damaged beyond repair.

As part of the restoration project, all the roofing tiles were removed from the dome. The damaged ones were discarded, some were repaired and about 3,000 new tiles were built.

Bernards Construction Superintendent Dan Huff said that a lot of other work was completed while the tiles were off, including more heavy-duty structural additions to the dome and a 55-foot elevator shaft was lowered into the basement through a hole in the roof, something that would have been impossible — or at least much more dangerous — with the tiles in place.

The new tiles, Huff said, were designed to be indistinguishable from the old ones.

“Tuesday the architect and the architect’s historical assistant were here to check the mock-up on the east side so they could see the mixture and the blend of the old and the new [tiles],” Huff said. “They looked at the mockup and approved the mockup. They also checked all the details of the roofing mockup.”

Approximately 5,800 old tiles will be reused on the roof, with about 3,000 new tiles replacing those which had to be discarded.

The roofing crew, Huff added, is going to be a small one. He wasn’t able to confirm the number of roofers on the project, but said it would be kept small for both safety, and because, to quote the old adage, “too many cooks in the kitchen ruin the soup.”

Retiling the dome is expected to take about six weeks. At present, all the tiles are staged either on the fourth floor or on the dome itself.

Information on the city hall restoration may be found at www.atascadero.org under “Historic City Hall Project,” listed on the left-hand side of the city’s homepage. The webpage includes construction documents and bid packages, including the bid schedule; resources, local involvement and links to the construction manager and the design team, as well as weekly updates with photos.