Make us a deal: Old West Palm city hall furniture up for sale

WEST PALM BEACH — It's true: City hall is for sale. But it's not what you think.

With the administration recently moved to classier digs on Clematis, the furnishings and various bric-a-brac will be up for grabs in the old city hall at 200 Second St.

Latest breaking news, photos and all of today's Post stories.

On the beat, behind the agenda: Post reporters cover your area in City Pulse.

The sale is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 16. Not-for-profits and certified small businesses get the exclusive run of the place for the first hour, before doors open to the public at 9 a.m.

"It's a great time to have a giant yard sale in West Palm Beach, with the economy the way it is and people looking for a bargain," Mayor Lois Frankel said Friday.

The terms are pay to play — or "cash and carry only," the administration's preferred wording. No checks, no credit cards.
Up for grabs: more than 250 bureaucrat- and commissioner-tested chairs, 150 desks, bookcases and shelving capable of holding heavy layers of regulation. You can also choose from 150 file cabinets, pink shovels left over from groundbreakings, and a floor safe — presumably empty, but you never know.

The shovels could be considered collector's items because city poo-bahs normally use gold-spray-painted ones. A spokesman didn't know where the pink ones are from.

"That is a mystery we are unable to solve," spokesman Peter Robbins said.

Some items have been carted over from the city's 45th Street offices, whose employees have been moved to the new city hall, where they got new furnishings.

Items will be for sale on the west patio of the old city hall, and in the lobby. The lobby's so crammed with chairs and desks now, "you can't move in it," says procurement official Nora Laudermilk.

"Make me an offer I can't refuse!" Laudermilk says. "Make me an offer, I'm selling it — curtains, I don't care what they take."

City departments with offices not located at the new city hall have already scavenged through the old building. What they left behind now gives the public a shot at the used furnishings.

The city isn't looking to make big money off the sale, Laudermilk says.

"Taxpayer money bought it," she said. "We'd rather just sell it and give the taxpayer some nice stuff at a discount."