City offices will move to Broadway, SAIF building during seismic retrofit 

This spring city employees will temporarily relocate to new offices while the Salem Civic Center undergoes a seismic retrofit that is expected to take at least 18 months to complete. 

The city council will also have to conduct its meetings elsewhere and will use Loucks Auditorium at the Salem Public Library’s main branch, said Courtney Knox Busch, the city’s strategic initiatives manager.

The $39.4 million project to retrofit the 50-year old brutalist structure will be paid for with money the infrastructure bond Salem voters passed in 2022. 

Portland-based contractor Howard S. Wright was tapped for the job. The firm previously worked on two major city builds: the seismic retrofit of the Salem Public Library, completed in 2021, and the public works building which opened in 2023.

Most city operations will move to two temporary office spaces. 

Knox Busch said the two temporary spaces, one on the fourth and fifth floors at the SAIF Parkway building at 440 Church Street S.E., and the other at 850 Broadway Street N.E. were selected to maximize efficiency and to ensure public-facing services remain accessible. She said the city’s customer service center will be split up and housed between the two temporary spaces, hopefully by June 1. 

Salem city councilors recently approved the two leases for the temporary spaces. 

The SAIF building will house the majority of city departments, including the city manager’s office, community planning and urban development, community services, finance, and customer service, according to a staff report from Public Works Director Brian Martin. The term of that lease is from June 1, 2025 until Nov. 30, 2026, and the city will pay about $30,000 a month in rent on the 20,000 square foot space. 

The Broadway lease is where the Salem Municipal Court will be housed during the retrofit. That lease is also from June 1, 2025 until Nov. 30, 2026, Martin said in a staff report. The city will pay about $33,500 a month on the roughly 15,000 square foot space. 

Some other city offices will move into existing city facilities downtown, Knox Busch said. The legal department will move in with the information technology office at 295 Church St. S.E. and compliance services will move in with urban development at 350 Commercial St. N.E.

“There’s a lot of details still to work out,” Knox Busch said.

The budget for relocating city staff is roughly $2.3 million and will pay for the two lease agreements, the logistics of physically moving employees to their new workspaces, and getting the spaces set up with the proper technology and equipment, said Aaron Kimsey, assistant city engineer, who is overseeing the retrofit project. The money will also pay for getting Loucks Auditorium equipped for the city council, he said. 

Because the infrastructure bond money is only eligible to be used on capital improvement projects, the relocation expenses will come out of the general fund, Kimsey said. That fund is currently facing a deficit of about $14 million.

Kimsey said the money was rolled over from savings on earlier city remodeling projects.

Work crews are expected to set up in mid June and construction should begin by July, Kimsey said. According to the most recent schedule, the project should be completed in February 2027.

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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