A permanent, practical home for city government.

According to Kenmore City Manager Fred Stouder, that might be the best feature of his city’s new municipal complex at 18120 68th Ave. N.E.

The city sponsored an open house for that complex May 8.

While Stouder admitted some of the moving about was by their own design, city leaders have been vagabonds as of late. Officials left Kenmore’s old city hall behind late last year to make room for a new branch of the U.S. Post Office. They have spent the last six months or so running Kenmore out of the second floor of the Schniztelbank building on Northeast Bothell Way.

Even so, Stouder insisted the city needed a more efficient space long before they needed to move in order to make way for the post office.

“Even the old city hall, it just wasn’t designed for municipal services,” Stouder said.

According to information provided by the city, the former city hall on Northeast 181st Street was intended to be used for no more than three to five years. It ended up serving as home to Kenmore government for roughly nine years.

During that time, Kenmore City Council held meetings in the Northshore Utility District (NUD) Building. Other city departments also spent time under other roofs. Stouder and Assistant City Manager Nancy Ousley said the city spent at least $35,000 a year renting meeting and other spaces.

But moving beyond hard numbers, Stouder said he likes to talk about “opportunity costs.” For example, he said Kenmore staffers regularly had to spend time setting up and tearing down meeting space in the NUD building. Stouder said that obviously was time that could have been spent more productively. And he further insisted that was just one example of the inefficiency under which Kenmore has been operating.

In addition to a permanent council chamber, Stouder talked about Kenmore having storage space, conference rooms and other municipal necessities all under one roof for the first time.

Nicole Brown is a project manager for OAC Services which oversaw construction of the new City Hall. During a preview of the building, Brown pointed out numerous features in addition to those mentioned by Stouder, especially highlighting the public art that dominates the City Hall lobby and the building’s many environmental features.

Titled “Confluence,” a hung sculpture actually begins outside the lobby area, where lily pads representing Lake Washington are suspended from the ceiling. Suspended lobby panels show Kenmore’s tree line, while three metal bird nests represent the city’s celebrated heron population.

Paid for with 1 percent of the overall construction budget, the artwork was created by Seattle area artist Susan Zoccola. Her other works include “Grass Blades,” a large installation at Seattle Center.

Kenmore Public Information Officer Leslie Harris noted the new City Hall is on track to be Leadership in Energy for Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certified. According to both Harris and Brown, green attributes include a vegetated roof, solar panels, natural lighting, permeable pavement to reduce water run off and countertops made from recycled materials. In a second-floor office area, Brown pointed out counter tops made from sunflower seeds.

Outside the building, near the rear parking lot, Brown pointed to a Japanese maple that was transplanted from elsewhere on the property as construction got under way. The tree was first sent for some rehab to a farm in Snohomish County. In the case of trees that were lost to make way for the construction, workers salvaged wood that later was used to make podiums and other furniture inside the council chambers.

While a public open house was May 8, an official ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned from 9 a.m to noon May 22. Stouder said city officials should be open for business in their new home the afternoon of May 17.

The city is releasing the total project budget as $14.4 million. Including sales tax, construction costs have been given as $9.4 million. According to Harris, bids opened in January 2009 were 40 percent less than original cost estimates. The building incorporates 36,930 square feet, including 15,000 square feet of underground parking.