Government Plaza is a building complex in Binghamton, New York

Binghamton, New York

Binghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...

 containing the offices for the City of Binghamton, Broome County

Broome County, New York

Broome County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 200,600. It was named in honor of John Broome, who was lieutenant governor in 1806 when Broome County was established. Its county seat is Binghamton, which is also its major city. The current...

 and New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 State. The complex is located in Downtown Binghamton

Downtown Binghamton

In the Southern Tier of New York State, nestled on the north bank of the Susquehanna River, just east of its confluence with the Chenango River one finds Downtown Binghamton...

 on the block bounded by State, Hawley, Isbell and Susquehanna streets. It was constructed as part of a massive urban renewal plan in Binghamton through the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Government Plaza is composed of three buildings which come together to form a U-shaped complex:

• the towering 18-story State Office Building, which is the tallest building in the Southern Tier
  Southern Tier
  The Southern Tier is a geographical term that refers to the counties of New York State west of the Catskill Mountains along the northern border of Pennsylvania. It is a loosely defined term that generally includes the counties that border Pennsylvania west of Delaware County inclusive...
  
   region of New York
• the Edwin L. Crawford County Office Building, which forms the east-wing of the complex
• Binghamton City Hall, which forms the west-wing.

An elevated plaza that originally led to the second-story lobby of the State Office Building was torn down in the mid-1990s due to deterioration and increasing maintenance costs.

State Office Building Contamination

The State Office Building is infamous for a fire that took place on February 5, 1981. A transformer explosion in the basement of the building spewed toxic PCBs throughout the entire building. While initially expected to only take days to reopen, the cleanup effort revealed the difficulty of removing PCB residue. The building remained closed until October 11, 1994. Multiple environmental samples taken throughout the cleanup had illustrated that despite their best efforts, workers had been unable to remove the residue, leading to several complete decontamination procedures within the building. The duration of the cleanup, combined with the uncertainty of the final effectiveness of the cleanup, led many workers to question whether the building was safe enough for reoccupation. While the initial cost of constructing the building in 1972 was $17 million, the cleanup efforts cost a staggering $53 million.