HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The City of Huntsville, Turner Construction Company and Goodwyn Mills Cawood (GMC) hosted a “topping out” ceremony on for the final beam placement at the new City Hall.
"This ceremony that we're presenting today is a key milestone that we like to do on all large projects," Brandon Tucker of Turner Construction shares. "We have over 130 men and women walk through that gate each day to put in hard work to build this project and make it a success and we applaud them for all the hard work that they do."
City employees, construction workers, designers, and elected leaders were given the opportunity to sign the beam and Mayor Tommy Battle shares the significance of this day. "The current city hall, which has served as well since the 1960s and you can look at this building when it was built in 1961, 62, it was state of the art," Battle shares. "Today it has panels which might slip off. It has rain which may fall in the in the building and we've [got] the useful life out of it. Now we're building a new building, a new building that will last just 100 years. That will be an iconic building that will be part of downtown."
The new building will not only be aesthetically pleasing but will provide more access for the public. "The seven-story building with the adjoining parking deck will allow us to work much more efficiently and make our offices convenient to the public," Battle shares. "And that's one of the things that we really wanted to make sure is a convenience for the public to get in and out and to use city services and I think we will save significant taxpayer dollars for decades to come. This city hall will reflect what a number one city in the nation should look like, what a number two city in the nation should look like."
Along with the beam, Turner Construction will also place a fir tree and U.S. flag atop City Hall after the final beam is secure. The roots of the topping-out ceremony tradition tie back to the ancient Scandinavian practice of placing an evergreen tree on the top of a new building to appease the tree-dwelling spirits. Another Native American belief is that no structure could be taller than the trees. In modern times, the custom has evolved to commemorate the moment when the final or highest beam is placed on a new building.