Valley City Council chooses design concept for new city hall

The Spokane Valley City Council got its first look Tuesday evening at potential designs of the new city hall to be constructed at the corner of Sprague Avenue and Dartmouth Road.

Using public input from meetings in the spring as well as interviews with council members and an analysis of space needs of the different city departments, contractor Architects West presented two potential options: a classically styled, three-story brick building and a slightly more contemporary building featuring a large open space between the three floors, with significantly more glass and large timbers. 

John Hohman, Spokane Valley community and economic development director, said both options are equivalent in cost and fit the budget as long as the design sticks with a smaller basement.

“The second option challenges us a little bit more, but not too much,” Hohman said about the design.

Mayor Dean Grafos was the only council member who briefly leaned toward the first option.

“I guess I’m outvoted,” he said, before joining the rest of the council in directing staff to continue work on the second option.

The budget for the new city hall is $14.4 million, including land acquisition, design, construction, furniture and fixtures. The project is paid for by $6.3 million in cash to cover land acquisition, design services and construction.  A 30-year, $8.2 million bond issue will pay for the rest.

Prior to the meeting, City Manager Mike Jackson explained the estimated annual bond repayment will be $8,000 more than the current lease payment.

“But that’s still less than the lease payment used to be before we renegotiated it,” Jackson said.

The lease is up in March 2017, but Jackson said the city may choose to extend it to make sure the new city hall is ready. The plan is to have the design finalized by the end of the year so the project can go out to bid in early 2016 and be finalized by March 2017.

“We are on track,” Jackson said, “but we have to keep moving.”

Grafos said there’s lots of work that still needs to be done.

“We don’t have a materials list yet; there are lots of nuts-and-bolts decisions that we still need to make,” he said, adding he’s gotten many questions about the scope of the project and what’s going on, but prior to Tuesday’s meeting it was too early to go into much detail.

City Councilman Bill Gothmann wanted to know if it’s possible to let Spokane Valley residents pick the design they like.

Jackson said a public hearing will be scheduled as soon as possible, and that’s one way for residents to weigh in on the design.

Hohman told the council to expect frequent visits from his staff about the city hall design and that the next presentation will be more detailed now that the council has picked a preferred option.

“There’s a lot of work to be done on this design from now on,” Hohman said. “We will come back to you often.”