City of San Bernardino Water Department to move into new Customer Service Center

The City of San Bernardino Water Department has announced its plans to move into a new Customer Service Center. The city has determined that City Hall, and the current location of the city’s water department, is not suitable for continued permanent occupation due to the building’s seismic risks.

The city of San Bernardino determined in early October – following an unusual swarm of small temblors on the southern end of the San Andreas Fault – that they would begin actively working to relocate the services of the city departments and employees in the building which was designed was designed prior to the earthquakes code updates following the 1971 Sylmar and 1994 Northridge earthquakes. The building sits along two fault lines.

The city has had two independent engineering evaluations in the last decade stating that the facility would be unsafe in an earthquake. The February 2016 evaluation concluded that a 6.0 earthquake or greater would lead to “a likelihood of building failure” for City Hall. An average, during the first week of a month some 200 employees, including the water department’s staff, are located in the building and the water department averages between 800 to 900 walk-in customers.

All current water department customer service activities – now located on the 2nd and 5th Floors of City Hall — will be relocating to their new facility at 1350 South E Street in San Bernardino, just South of Orange Show Road, no later than this summer.

“We are moving as quickly as possible to comply with the city’s order to vacate city hall and are working diligently to make sure that this move has a minimal impact on our customers and ratepayers,” stated General Manager Stacey Aldstadt.  “We have this process budgeted so there will be no increase in existing rates.”

The location of the new Customer Service Center is currently owned by the San Bernardino City’s Water Department and was acquired in a property swap with the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District in 2008.  The building, which will require renovation and technical upgrades to meet the new use and increased demands of a Customer Service Center, has been vacant since its acquisition.

Improvements to the new facility will include a remodel of the building to install necessary safety-related improvements, development of parking facilities for customers and staff, and improvements for visibility, water conservation, and disability access.

“Our greatest concern at this moment is a successful transition to the new location that will allow us to improve efficiency and not inconvenience our customers,” continued Aldstadt.  “We view this as an investment in a facility that will meet customer demand for the next 50 years.”