It looked from a distance like a giant red giraffe had wandered onto the construction site of El Cerrito's new Recycling Center Friday.

The 75-foot, 200-ton crane was on hand to give a lift to the center's new administration building, which arrived in three big pieces around 3 a.m. from Sacramento.

The 2,200-square-foot structure was the last major piece missing from the city's new recycling facility, and its installation represents a milestone for the city officials and construction team who've been working on the new center for months.

"I'm very excited about the facility," said City Councilwoman Janet Abelson, who watched the procedure from under a white hard hat. "I think it can be a model for other cities. It's a model for our kids."

The range of materials to be accepted by the new center is said to be among the most comprehensive among municipal recycling operations in the United States. It is designed to help the environment not just in the materials it rescues from the waste stream but also in its energy-saving construction with solar panels, irrigation from recycled rain water and re-use of materials in the buildings. Abelson said the city is seeking LEED Platinum certification, the top green rating, for the facility.

The three sections of the administration building were built for El Cerrito by Zeta Communities in Sacramento and sent on large trucks between 1-3 a.m. Saturday morning, said Alex Sinunu, project manager for the Pankow construction firm in charge of building the new center. Two large sections, each weighing about 35,000 pounds, make up two halves of the building, while the third smaller section is window-filled clerestory that will rest atop a passage between the two halves of the structure.

"Once this is installed, it's just what we call 'button up,' " Sinunu said, referring to such remaining tasks as installing electric and water lines, now that the major structural work is largely complete.

Also wearing a visitor's hard hat Saturday was Ron Egherman, chair of the city's Environmental Quality Committee. "I am so proud that the City of El Cerrito has enabled what is generally a dirty, usually nasty operation called a recycling center to become not only environmentally conscious but also user-friendly, safe and clean."

He said he hopes residents will not take the new center for granted and will appreciate all the planning and effort that city employees put into making it happen.

Abelson said that when she first came onto the City Council (in 1999), the city was reviewing the status of the facility, which had begun as a rudimentary operation in 1971. "We had to decide whether we were even going to keep our recycling center," she said.

The city did a survey of residents, and a majority said they not only wanted to keep it but that they'd pay higher fees to do so, Abelson said.

The new Recycling Center is expected to be fully operational in February, city officials say. There's a chance of partial operation beginning in later January, they say.