NORTHAMPTON — Mold grows out of several locations. Its structural support slowly deteriorates. And a large chunk of plaster has fallen from the ceiling, not far from an office desk where a worker sits.

These are just some of the issues currently plaguing the century-and-a-half old Memorial Hall Building at 240 Main St., home of several city departments and currently in dire need of repair. The state of the building led the City Council last week to unanimously approve $426,000 from the city’s General Stabilization Fund to go toward fixing the building’s most critical infrastructure.

“I don’t think we’re in crisis mode, but we’re in the mode where it’s do something now, or we will be in crisis,” said Patrick McCarthy, the director of Central Services Department for the city, speaking from his office within Memorial Hall last Friday. “The problem has been going on for a while, even before my time. There’s always been water in the basement, which is kind of a red flag.”

The main issue, McCarthy said, is that building has taken in large amounts of water over the years without adequate means of drainage, which has begun to affect the building’s foundation. Such deficiencies cause the building’s basement to frequently flood and water to seep into its brick exterior following rainstorms or thawing of snow.

The situation has reached a point where the city has had to cordon off the side entrance to the building, leading from neighboring Pulaski Park, to prevent possible injury from loose granite and brick. Recently, a 4-foot chunk of plaster in part of the building that houses the Northampton Veteran’s Services Department fell off the ceiling, right near an employee’s desk where they were sitting.

McCarthy said that the total cost to fix the building was estimated at $2.7 million. Although some of that funding, to repair the building’s roof, had already been secured, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra’s financial order to the council asked for $426,000 to meet the most pressing concerns. Those include constructing a new drainage system, repairs to arched support structures in the basement and fixing the building’s lolly columns, or steel support beams whose bottoms have deteriorated due to water damage.

“There is now significant structural work outside of what we can handle internally,” Sciarra said at the council’s March 7 meeting. She added that it was “imperative that we get this work started because there are safety concerns about this building.”

Built in the 1870s in honor of veterans of the U.S. Civil War, the Memorial Hall building is located next to city hall and hosts the offices for the city’s Central Services, Arts Council, Human Resources and Veteran’s Services, among others. Several memorials in front of the building continue to honor veterans of later wars.

Though the council unanimously approved the measure, Ward 3 councilor Quaverly Rothenberg criticized the mayor’s office for rushing the order to bring before the council without giving them much time to read through the details and get the information they needed.

“This process has got to be improved,” Rothenberg said. “Get it on our radar sooner, or if it’s really last minute, on a silver platter with all the information we need. We cannot drop everything in our lives and go hunting it down.”

She also threatened to raise a charter objection the next time such an order was rushed, as she previously attempted to do during confirmation of council President Alex Jarrett in January.

Alan Wolf, the mayor’s chief of staff, responded that the mayor’s office had followed the standard process of bringing an order before the council and providing experts on the matter to give presentations on the topic.

“It is highly irregular to say that we’re not providing information,” Wolf said. “We’re trying to get the work of the people of Northampton done. This building next door to us could fall down.”