Construction – or, actually, deconstruction – is expected to begin soon on Huntsville’s new city hall.
It’s anticipated to be a new centerpiece of downtown, an $85 million project that will consolidate city offices scattered throughout the city under one roof.
It’s also going to be a mess and take a while to complete.
City Administrator John Hamilton said Thursday that city hopes to award the contract in a few weeks for the construction of the seven-floor building on the site of the municipal parking garage that sits catty-corner to the Madison County Courthouse and across Fountain Circle from the current city of Huntsville administration building.
Related: Huntsville reveals drawings for new $60 million city hall
That means, of course, that the first step in building the new city hall will be the demolition of the parking garage – which city officials have said is outdated and should be razed regardless of plans for a replacement on the same site.
“I would expect by sometime in October that (city) council is seeing the (construction) contract for approval,” Hamilton said. “The general contractor will then mobilize and part of their project will include the demolition of the current parking garage. So the scope begins at demolition and all the way through completion is all what will be in that construction contract.”
The new city hall has long been in the city’s plans given that the administration building has issues and is more than 50 years old just as the race to be the first to the moon was accelerating.
Since then, of course, Huntsville has grown to become Alabama’s largest city and its government has grown as well without a corresponding growth in facilities. As a result, city offices are located in more than a dozen locations across the city at a cost of about $365,000 annually.
The city unveiled renderings of the new city hall last year, which was designed by the architecture firm Goodwin, Mills and Cawood.
The architects said the design provides a much larger city hall building but it does not overwhelm the neighborhood. The nearby courthouse, for example, is eight floors. Huntsville’s tallest downtown buildings range from 10 to 12 floors.
Once work on the project begins, Hamilton said it will take about two years to complete – which will put a major construction site in the middle of downtown Huntsville with surrounding buildings separated only by two-lane roads.
The administration introduced its two capital improvement budgets to the city council Thursday for approval next week leading up to the beginning of the 2022 fiscal year on Oct. 1. In the 1990 Capital Improvement Plan, funding is included for the new city hall for $85 million.
When discussion with the city council began in earnest two years ago leading to the construction project, the administration had discussed the new city hall with a price tag of about $60 million.
Hamilton said Thursday that $60 million cost was strictly for construction. The $85 million covers not only the new building but complete furnishings as well as but the new parking garage that will replace the demolished one. It also includes all design costs.
The price of construction materials, Hamilton said, have also seen a sharp increase over the past two years, leading to an increase in the budget.
During a work session Thursday, no council members raised concerns about the cost of the new city hall and it is expected to be approved next week.
Even in approving the budget that includes funding for the new city hall, the city council will also have to approve the construction contract.
City leaders have not announced plans for the site of the current administration building that overlooks Big Spring Park, though it is expect the slender marble-exterior building will be brought down. At one time, the city discussed making the site available to developers for a mixed-use high-rise building that would potentially have been the city’s tallest.
That conversation eventually died in 2018.
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