City Hall AV Improvements

January 6, 2015

The City's contractor is expected to complete all renovations to the Sullivan Chamber by the end of January 2015.

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June 19, 2014

During the week of June 19, movers will place most furnishings from the Chamber in storage. Next week, a fine arts storage company will be removing and securing the portraits from the Chamber and Ackermann Room. Within the coming week, the City’s contractor, Casby Brothers, Inc, will be installing scaffolding throughout the Chamber and beginning to mobilize for a very active summer of construction in the Chamber—removing and replacing acoustical ceiling panels, installing new lighting, new fans and radiators, constructing an accessible ramp to the rostrum, and running electrical, network, and HVAC infrastructure.

Throughout the construction process, there will be periodic impacts to parking outside of City Hall; these will be posted as far in advance as possible. There will also be noise throughout the construction process. While most of the work will be confined to the conference rooms themselves, there will be times that associated infrastructure work will require the contractor to do work in other City Hall offices or outside the building. Such work will be closely coordinated with those impacted.

Sullivan Chamber
The Sullivan Chamber is one of the most important civic spaces in the City of Cambridge. A strong desire to keep the room historically "intact" has resulted in a strategy, informed by input from Charles Sullivan of the Cambridge Historical Commission, where new technology is "applied" to the space rather than fully integrated architecturally. This approach maintains the integrity of the space while allowing flexibility in the future to retool systems with the next generation of equipment or integrate proposed equipment more fully (such as recessing loudspeakers into the wall). The room has a number of areas that need attention for maintenance reasons, but were not considered comprehensively as a part of this study.

The installation of AV improvements will be implemented concurrently with ADA accessibility upgrades to the Mayor's rostrum. The focus of the recommended work is to improve speech reinforcement, provide video presentation and playback capability, improve overall acoustic performance and overall lighting conditions. A significant portion of the new equipment will address outdated and underperforming equipment used by the Office of Cable Television (Cable TV) to record and broadcast public hearings as well as the option to provide video streaming capabilities that were previously non-existent.

Ackermann Room
The primary goal for this project in this space is to integrate appropriate media technologies and improve lighting conditions while preserving the historic character of the room.

Sophie J. Anastos Room
The primary goal of this project is to upgrade the function of AV services and improve HVAC conditions in the room.

City of Cambridge - Department of Public Works 147 Hampshire Street Cambridge, MA 02139

For additional information or assistance, please contact Lou Mothon, Project Manager: lmothon@cambridgema.gov / 617.349.4828.

For 24 hour emergency assistance, please call Public Works at 617.349.4800.