“I think it’s fabulous,” said Betty Goldie after touring the facility. “Very large –I think it’s great.”

Though the new building — at 50,000 square feet — is indeed large, the entire expansion and renovation to Milton’s Town Hall was grander in scope.

First outlined as a need in a civic facilities assessment in the late 1990s when the Town’s population was actually shrinking as opposed to exploding, it has been a laborious decade for those involved in making the new Town Hall a reality.

First came the buying up of nearby properties for demolition or relocation, followed by a public design process, then finally the groundbreaking on the $25-million project in May, 2007.

Now, two-and-a-half years later — six months to a year later than what had been estimated at various times — the seat of local government is officially open, with Town staff back under one roof and the local council ready to resume sessions again in the historic council chambers.

“This is a beautiful building — no question about it,” said Jim Watson, a town councillor in the early 1980s when the municipality hired architects to do a renovation to the old part of the Town Hall, which was originally built as the County Court House in 1855 — two years before Milton became a Town.

The same firm, The Ventin Group, undertook the design on the $24-million expansion building and $1-million conservation plan for the old Town Hall and adjacent Hugh Foster Hall, both heritage buildings.

Watson was happy the firm remained involved and recalled choosing architect Carlos Ventin 25 years ago.

“I said, ‘Hey, this guy’s got a handle on the old and the new,’” Watson said. “And he got a chance to finish what he started.”

Watson, a Nassagaweya resident, said he’s also pleased the Town chose to name 17 of 18 meeting rooms after local hamlets through the municipality.

That’s only one way that heritage and the greater community are being honoured, according to the Town. The design concept of the expansion contains three elements expressed in the building itself.

• The community’s architectural heritage literally grows in the plots of native plantings outside the building and in the garden at the east façade, which is the green roof to an underground parking garage.

• The walls of limestone, extracted from the same quarry as that used for the original Town Hall, represents the nearby Niagara Escarpment.

• The Sixteen Mile Creek — branches of which course through the municipality — is reflected in a water feature in the new civic square.

Looking east to west from the Mary Street front entrance, facing Hugh Street, is the staff portion of the expansion, followed by the two-storey public lobby, a glass walkway that now houses Milton’s Walk of Fame, the courtyard to the old jail that once stood on the site and the old Town Hall.

“I’m glad they left it in the downtown area,” Milton resident Tony Ferrante said of council’s decision to consolidate staff in an expanded Town Hall. “It keeps the downtown vibrant.”

Maintaining a healthy downtown business district was also the reason for a less publicized aspect of the Town Hall expansion project. The municipality bought up six nearby properties to accommodate the project, three of which were demolished, two relocated to nearby lots, and one building that was eventually left where it was at 16 Hugh Lane.

The most visible effect of these purchases is on Mary Street where the street between Brown and Charles Streets has a number of parking lots, similar to the parking districts backing Bloor Street over the subway in Toronto.

While the architecture of the expansion project appeared to be appreciated, some residents have in the past been bothered by the price tag.

The Town paid for about half of the cost of the expansion with the use of funds provided by developers. A further $4.3 million was paid for through the use of Mohawk Racetrack slot revenues, and the Town also received a half-million-dollar grant from the Province to assist in its attempts to reach LEED certification, a measure of sustainable building processes.

The expansion was designed with the possibility of accommodating a second phase — a two-storey addition to the top of the new building. That project is included in the Town’s capital budget forecast, to begin in 2014 until 2016 at a total cost of $24 million. The Town has stated this project isn’t a certainty and that alternatives may be considered in the future.

Tim Foran can be reached at tforan@miltoncanadianchampion.com .