The month of March will be one of renewal and goodbye for the city of Slidell.

The city will say hello to the new Slidell City Council and Administrative Center on Second Street with a grand opening next Friday evening. Later on in March, the city will say goodbye to the Slidell Municipal Auditorium.

The grand opening of the new municipal building will be held in conjunction with the year’s first Olde Towne Alive block party, so residents can celebrate the event with food, entertainment and dancing in the streets.

The Slidell Council and Administrative Building will have its grand opening next Friday. It will house the City Council and the departments of Finance, Human Resources, Data Processing and Accounting. (Staff Photo by Erik Sanzenbach)

The new building which sits next to the Slidell City Hall will be officially opened by Mayor Ben Morris and City Council members with a ribbon cutting at 7 p.m. Friday. That will be followed by public tours of the new 33,000-square-foot building which will house the council, council chambers and the departments of finance, data processing, risk management and personnel as well as the offices for the city attorney.

The building, which was built with hurricane recovery money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, cost $5.4 million to build.

Most of the moving has been done, and almost a quarter of the city employees will now be able to move out of the complex of city trailers on Bayou Lane that has served as City Hall for the past five years. Hurricane Katrina flooded the City Hall and destroyed the other municipal buildings, forcing the government to take up residence in the trailers. The Council and Administrative Center is just the beginning for the city government.

Construction is already under way on the new Technology and Cultural Arts Center located right behind the City Hall. That is to be finished by 2011 and will house the rest of the city government.

The city will be getting a new auditorium also, but before the new one is constructed, the old Slidell Municipal Auditorium, across the street from the City Hall, will be razed at the end of March.

Katrina heavily damaged the auditorium. At first FEMA told the city it would repair the facility, but after months of negotiations, FEMA finally agreed pay for the demolition of the old auditorium and the construction of a new one.

Before the old auditorium is gone forever, the newly-created Friends of the Arts and the Department of Cultural and Public Affairs want the citizens of Slidell to have a chance to say goodbye to the old structure that has provided a meeting place for high school proms, carnival balls and other functions for many years.

The city is asking any resident who has old photographs or memorabilia of the auditorium to bring it to the Department of Cultural and Public Affairs, still in the Bayou Lane trailer complex. The department and Friends of the Arts will then put all these photos and artifacts on display from 10 am to 4 p.m. March 20 in the auditorium for “The Final Curtain Call” show which is free and open to the public.

All the memorabilia will still be on display for the Friends of the Arts Charter Members’ Gala that night from 7-10 p.m. The gala will be the auditorium’s final hurrah, and will feature culinary creations from local chef John Besh, and the city’s very own Ronnie Kole will provide the entertainment.

At the end of the evening all the photos an auditorium memorabilia will be returned to their owners.

For more information on “The Final Curtain Call” and the gala call 643-5508, or 639-9362.�