Council hearing details $58.5 million in City Hall accessibility projects; stair safety and wayfinding flagged as immediate concerns

At a Sep. 11 hearing of the Boston City Council Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology, councilors and city officials reviewed current and planned accessibility work at Boston City Hall and identified several near-term safety and wayfinding problems that city staff said they will study and address. The hearing was chaired by Councilor Enrique Pepin and sponsored by Councilor Ed Flynn. The city described three projects now in design or planned that officials said together total about $58.5 million: an approximately $8 million four‑stop elevator to replace nonfunctional escalators, a roughly $50 million City Hall Plaza Phase 2 renovation, and a smaller registry counter renovation to make three transaction windows accessible. “We have about, you know, $58,000,000 or 58 and a half million dollars of projects upcoming and planned for City Hall,” said Eamon Shelton, Commissioner of Property Management. The projects matter because the existing interior layout, aging equipment and several nonconforming features make parts of City Hall difficult to use for seniors and people with disabilities. “The building was built in the 1960s just before accessibility…