LANSING, Mich. — Lansing City Hall may be moving, and city officials say they’re optimistic that a new location will be better for residents.
“Our current building is kind of old and tired,” said Andy Kilpatrick, the city’s public service director.
The 80,000 square foot city hall building, which also houses the 54-A District court and police headquarters, has had its fair share of issues involving fire suppression, HVAC, electricity and leaking pipes.
“You know it was built in the late 1950’s, and it wasn’t designed for the digital age we’re in now,” Kilpatrick said.
Because of those issues, Mayor Andy Schor decided to put out a request for proposals.
“A good option would be for us to look at proposals from developers on a new city hall building and then repurpose the old building,” Schor said.
Officials said they’re hoping a new building would be better equipped to served people in the community.
"You know the current City Hall building doesn’t have free parking for someone to come in and handle business, so all of these are different customer service options that can happen potentially with a new building,” Schor said.
Kilpatrick said, what they'd like to have in a new building "is for when residents or folks come into the building, they’re able to get most of their services all in one location, so you don’t have to go to different floors or possible different buildings downtown.”
City officials said they're also open to hearing from developers who may have renovation ideas for the current City Hall, but it would cost around 80 million dollars to make all the needed repairs.
“That price would get us a newly renovated building and we’ll be up to code, but it would still be the 10 floors and may not be laid out exactly how we want it and it may have more space than we need right now,” Kilpatrick said.
It’s still unclear how the city would pay for the potential move.
“If this is something we can afford now, we’ll go forward or we may defer this for a couple years and come up with a financial plan that makes sense for us,” Kilpatrick said.
The request for proposals will close on March 8, and, from there, officials will start reviewing documents submitted by developers and make a decision.
