Iron River City Hall opens on West Adams Street after move

Iron River residents can now go to City Hall at 801 W. Adams St. for in-person service again after the municipal offices reopened there on Wednesday, June 3. The move ended a public closure that ran from Wednesday, May 27, through Monday, June 1, while city staff finished packing, moving files and equipment, and shifting computers and network systems into the new building.

City Manager Rachel Andreski said the transition was essentially complete, with the new facility operational even as workers continued cleaning, sorting and putting things in place. For residents, the practical change is simple: city business is back under one roof on West Adams Street, with office hours listed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The relocation affects the city’s main front counter, not just one office. The city’s contact pages place the city manager, city clerk, treasurer and police front desk at the West Adams Street address, and the police department’s front desk remains tied to the City Hall complex. That means permits, records requests, routine payments and day-to-day questions now run through the new site instead of the old Genesee Street building.

The move also came with a hard spending limit. The council hired an Escanaba-based moving company to handle the heavy lifting, and the contract was capped at $4,875 for three to four workers over two days. City officials had already committed significant money to the project before the final transfer, including a May 2025 renovation bid of $526,531 for work at 801 W. Adams St. and an October 2025 project total that had reached $805,362.83.

The shift to West Adams Street was years in the making. The city held a public hearing on May 1, 2024, on a potential purchase and relocation to the new address, and in March 2025 the City Council unanimously approved buying the site and moving municipal operations there. At the same time, the former City Hall building on Genesee Street was set up for redevelopment, with plans that envisioned 18 rental units and projected just under $1.5 million in project costs and about $254,000 in annual gross revenue.

The old headquarters also carried historic weight. The Iron River Town Hall/City Hall on Genesee Street is identified in preservation references as being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, which helped drive public concern over its future. In April 2026, the city decided not to relocate the outdoor warning siren from that building after the move was estimated to cost about $15,000, leaving the siren in place for the new property owner to keep there.

For Iron River, the reopening on West Adams Street marks the point where the long planning, renovation and relocation work became the city’s daily reality. Residents now have a single downtown address for core city services, and the question ahead is whether the new setup proves smoother, faster and more functional than the one it replaced.