Kinkead Building move pushed back to September

Human Resources officials expect to move their staff out of the Kinkead Building in September.

Deputy Director Mike Torvinen told the Interim Finance Committee on Tuesday all sides have now signed off on the design and furnishings for the new buildings on Technology Way near the airport.

"We should get a certificate of occupancy from the city some time in the middle of August," he said.

Once Reno Business Interiors installs the furniture, file storage and other equipment, he said, the move will begin. The first to transfer will be the Division of Child and Family Services, which is now in the old Children's Home cottages at Stewart and Fifth streets. They will get the third floor of one new building, which will house the director's office and rural clinics on floor one, Mental Health and Developmental Services on the second.

The other building will be the Health Division's offices.

Torvinen said the department has also decided to move the Rural Clinics staff into extra space in the new buildings, which were formerly the offices of Harley-Davidson Financial.

He said once family services is moved, "we would then plan to just keep the movers busy."

Human Resources has more than 350 people in the Kinkead, which has been described as the worst office building the state ever constructed. Safety inspectors have listed hundreds of problems in Kinkead, including floors that slope as much as 6 inches from one end to the other. An engineering report last year said a major earthquake could cause the building to collapse.

The finance committee in November approved about $1 million to rehabilitate the Harley-Davidson Financial buildings and move everyone out of Kinkead. The move date has changed a couple of times since then, from June to August and now to September. The committee also directed family services to move out of the 70-year-old cottages of the former Children's Home.

The first agency to move out was the Department of Information Technology which last month took about 40 staff members, including the administrative staff to 400 King St. Only the technical staff of DOIT remains in Kinkead, and they will move this summer when the expanded computing center behind state printing is completed.

• Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.