- April 19, 2024
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An architect and construction manager would provide plans to enable City Council to analyze the costs for building a City Hall.
A potential City Hall has been given a $10 million price tag.
But the City Council wants more specifics to compare the current costs of renting and maintaining the offices at City Marketplace before it makes any decisions about building a City Hall.
A request for qualifications was posted on the Palm Coast website Monday, Feb. 7, which the city hopes will lead to a construction management firm providing plans at little or no cost to the city, for a potential City Hall.
The city has already accepted qualifications for architectural firms. At an upcoming City Council meeting, staff will recommend that C.T. Hsu and Associates be contracted to provide their portion of the plans.
These plans are for informational purposes only, City Manager Jim Landon said Tueday, Feb. 8, at the workshop.
“We put together this conceptual idea (for a City Hall),” Landon said, referring to the workshops several months ago. “There wasn’t any meat on those bones at all, just conceptual.”
To obtain accurate numbers, Landon said, the city needed professional help.
“In today’s world, (the firms) are willing to provide that information with little or no cost, provided that if they do that, they’ll get the work,” Landon said. The firms are informed that the project has not been approved and might not be approved at all.
That way, the city will not be stuck with a $200,000 cost of producing the plans, as it did a few years ago, when a $22 million referendum to build City Hall was rejected by the voters.
“It’s not a done deal,” Landon said. “The community will be involved with this in all the preliminary stages … I’m not convinced the community is ready for it, and there’s still going to have to be a lot of work out there to make sure the community (supports building a City Hall).”
Landon went on to say: “You’ll never make everybody happy, but there has to be a lot more work and discussion in the community before they’re ready for it, if they ever are ready for it. Then, maybe not — maybe we stay here (in City Marketplace).”
