Greensboro could be breaking ground on a new city hall later this year.
Following a brief executive session during its Feb. 3 meeting, the Greensboro City Council voted to demolish its existing city hall off North Main Street to build a new state-of-the-art facility on the same site. The new space moves city staff housed between multiple buildings into one location and addresses the city’s need for a modernized, adequate city hall.
The council held a public hearing before the meeting to discuss city hall options presented by Adam Glenn with Hill Foley Rossi & Associates.
Current plans include a two-story, 10,700-square-foot facility. The first floor would be the “public-facing hub of the building,” with a main lobby entrance off North Main Street, centrally located council chambers and a large public meeting space, a conference room, and bill-pay counters. The second floor would include offices and related support spaces for city departments and office space for the mayor, city manager, and city clerk. Plans also include around 40 parking spaces for staff and customers.
The cost of the new facility, including demolition, site preparation, and construction, is estimated at $4.17 million.
During the public hearing, Glenn also presented a second option to repurpose the old BB&T building off South Main Street, which the city owns. The plans included renovating the 12,425-square-foot space for city operations and building a one-story addition to house city council chambers and a public meeting space.
While the option to repurpose the BB&T building had a lower estimated cost of $3.33 million, Glenn warned council members of the expensive risks associated with renovating an old building, such as unforeseen remediation costs for asbestos and other hazardous materials.
Glenn recommended building a new city hall, considering the likely remediation costs and issues with adapting the original bank configurations.
“The new building allows you to customize it to exactly what the city needs,” he said. “It provides more parking, and I think the look, like the aesthetic of that building, looks more like a city hall than the BB&T building [that] looks like a bank. I understand [the new building option] costs more, but I feel like you get more value from that property, and there are probably less unknowns with avoiding a renovation.”
Phil Henry was the only resident to speak on the options. He questioned the number of parking spaces, saying he only sees a few cars in the existing city hall parking lot each day.
Mayor Corey Williams said the current space estimate is a “rough draft” that considers the number of office staff and could be scaled back before construction.
City manager Autron Hayes also noted the need for more handicapped parking, explaining how many times people needing that parking at the existing city hall have had to walk over from the Family Dollar nearby or city employees have had to come to their car to get their utility bill.
“It may look like there’s too much parking, but you know if … the city employee is coming out to the car and getting your bill, there’s not enough parking,” Hayes said. “We have to take into consideration all those things, that [while] it’s not going to be used all the time, we have to try to at least make it readily available to them.”
Glenn estimated that construction would take about two years, and Greensboro could be ready to break ground as early as this summer.
While Glenn said he was unaware of any construction delays, he recommended that the council hire a contractor immediately to adhere to the construction timeline.