So, at a council finance committee meeting yesterday, it was recommended that funding for this come from the building upgrade budget, and that any shortfall was sought through the Long Term Plan 2018-2028.
Council director corporate services Adele Henderson said it was thought the alternate premises could be needed for at least three years, or up to five.
A fit out was needed as the available spaces were a lot smaller than those council staff currently worked in - they occupy the majority of the two civic buildings' combined total footprint of 11,100sq m - and it was proposed the sites be fitted out to provide for collaborative areas so staff could move between the buildings.
"This has got the potential to completely, over five years, to wipe out the development budget completely," Councillor Tony Jeffrey said. "This is a huge decision and it has huge implications for our ratepayers too."
However the impact of the decision - and that council received some crucial additional information at the 11th hour - meant councillor Annette Brosnan recommended they wait until their next meeting to make a decision.
"This is a huge decision, it's a long-reaching decision and it's one that is going to potentially split our staff up, and our public services up for a number of years," she said.
"I feel that we need to get this right, we need to give it due consideration. I won't be rushed because it would be ideal to sign a lease this week, rather than two weeks from now."
However Napier Mayor Bill Dalton spoke against this, requesting urgency as staff were currently working in a building classified as at-risk.
"They've all carried on with their jobs because they've seen that we're doing everything possible with as much speed and as quickly as possible to get the situation resolved.
"If we give them the signal from this council that we are going to delay things, the staff will absolutely lose confidence in the process and we don't think that's reasonable."
Although council had to be prudent with ratepayer money, councillor Claire Hague said she did not think council had a choice other than relocating staff from the buildings as soon as possible.
Due to commercial sensitivity, council agreed to continue their discussion in a publicly excluded section of the meeting. Afterwards, Mr Dalton said the committee had not left the matter on the table, but had agreed to all recommendations.
These also included accepting the Strata Group seismic assessment, approve the relocation of staff, and that council would undertake consultation on the proposed options for the civic building upgrade, and potential commercial development around October.
Mr Dalton said they also agreed to the late recommendations provided to councillors yesterday. These were not included in the public agenda.
They included allowing council chief executive Wayne Jack up to $1m per annum in lease/rental costs for staff office accommodation.
The other additional recommendation could not be provided to Hawke's Bay Today last night, however during the meeting it was stated as providing Mr Jack delegation of up to $1 million to undertake fit out requirements to staff premises and library service centre requirements.
It was expected the two buildings would remain open for at least the next month. Until decisions on a permanent library were made, the council was also considering how the library would be accessed - exploring a range of options which could see a pop-up library and customer services counter in the CBD.
So far, four staff had taken up the option to work off-site until a temporary office location was established.
