City Hall Building Update

City Hall could potentially relocate a couple blocks to the north along Main Street to take advantage of a unique opportunity. In late April 2019, the city was offered the chance to purchase the property at 10501 SE Main St., currently owned by Advantis. After a 5-month process that included direction from City Council, staff review, broker negotiations and public meetings, council authorized a purchase agreement on Aug. 27. The city is now in the due diligence phase and anticipates closing on the property this winter.

Practical & Economical Solution
The purchase would centralize city services and address current space needs. This would result in better community access, reduce environmental impacts, and provide adequate office space for current and future staffing levels.

After careful financial assessment, it was determined that acquiring an existing building is the most fiscally responsible decision for the city’s long-term needs. The building would:

• Address longstanding space deficiencies identified in a 2010 space needs assessment.
• Cost significantly less than a comparable retrofit and avoid ongoing maintenance costs.
• Be purchased with existing resources, preventing the need to increase property taxes.
• Cost approximately half the price per square foot of the new Lake Oswego and Gladstone Civic Centers.

Moreover, based on current construction costs, the city believes this is the most financially responsible approach. 

Location, Location, Location
Located in Milwaukie’s downtown core, the building would still offer high accessibility to the community, while also providing more city services in one place. The availability of a building suitable for serving as a city hall in a downtown area is unique unto itself for most cities.

Achieving City Goals
The purchase would move the city one step closer to achieving Milwaukie’s climate action priorities, community engagement goals, and Oregon’s statewide planning goal 11 (see links below).

With services and staff separated across the city, extensive time is spent traveling between buildings to conduct business and meetings. The average round trip is 25-30 minutes. To take this trip once a day for a year would produce 0.57 metric tons of CO₂—the equivalent of driving 1,394 miles and using 64.1 gallons of gasoline or 1.3 barrels of oil. Consolidated services help the city move along the path towards carbon neutrality.

With additional meeting spaces available in the building, the city would have an opportunity to increase civic engagement opportunities. The 2010 space needs analysis noted, “there is not sufficient space to hold public meetings and there is often overflow of community members forced to wait in the halls during the popular public meetings and municipal court days.”

Statewide goal 11 calls for efficient planning of public services to be planned “in accordance with a community’s needs and capacities rather than be forced to respond to development as it occurs.” Consolidation of community services allows them to be more equitable and convenient to all.

Due to the lack of space for general staffing, the city had explored options to remodel the current city hall building. Feasible options, however, would have only addressed immediate space needs rather than long-term solutions. The building purchase would allow the city to navigate both issues.

What’s Next?
Once the due diligence period is complete, a robust community engagement process will be conducted to determine the future use of the current City Hall. This discussion is expected to begin in late fall 2019.