VB Looking to Move City Hall to Town Center

[BFG 631]

VB is possibly considering moving City Hall to Town Center. The current building is almost 50 years old and loaded with asbestos. Another option would be to renovate or rebuild at the Municipal Complex.

http://southsidedaily.com/2016/02/01/virginia-beach-city-council-to-consider-moving-city-hall-to-town-center/

Considering Mayor Sessoms loves calling TC "downtown Virginia Beach", it makes sense to move there.

[vdogg 545]

"An inter-office memorandum prepared Friday by Public Works Director  Phil Davenport at City Manager Dave Hansen’s request produced a rough estimate of $48.6 million to design and construct a 140,000-square-foot City Hall at Town Center. Alternatively, the city could have a private firm design, construct and own the building, and lease it back to the city at a cost of about $3.99 million annually, according to the memo.

A public-private project featuring the city as the anchor tenant of a new building at Town Center would likely require the city to buy a $14 million parking garage for it, Davenport wrote." 

 

This is has block 2 written all over it. With city hall the anchor tenant for 140,000 sq ft they could easily build a 300,000 sq ft tower. That's block 2 tower right there, it sounds suspiciously like that's the way they're headed.

[OBXastronaut 15]

This would be huge. A major criticism of Town Center at its current stage of development is that it feels like a giant shopping mall, with no real sense of a city-like atmosphere - a criticism that's burdened a lot of other high density new urbanist developments (think Reston). Relocating the government complex and its employees to the middle of Town Center will only help the area feel more and more like a real multi-purpose downtown.

If Block 2 does end up being the future VB City Hall, I wonder how tall it will be- I'm thinking of Richmond's city hall as a good potential comparison. Since it would be right on the corner of Independence and VB Blvd, would that end up changing the configuration of that intersection? Both roads are already traffic nightmares even during the day.

[HRVT 107]

I agree that this is the next logical move. I didn't know how old city hall is, but at 47 years it is definitely approaching time to look at alternatives. Relocating city hall to Town Center would give the area another boost and as mentioned above, would give Town Center more "credibility" as a true downtown. Moving many of the city offices and services to Town Center will make those services more accessible as they will be more central rather than in a remote part of town.

This move would also free up a large chunk of real estate where City Hall and such once stood in an area that will have much more population 7-10 years from now when this move does take place, if it does. Then again, this move almost makes too much sense.

ADDED: Also, at 140K square feet overall, we could still be looking at a 14-16 story building standing around 160-200 feet. If other tenants could be added and push the square footage to 250-300K, we could be looking at a new signature tower.

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by HRVT

[BFG 631]

I read an article last week about how new City Manager Dave Hansen is very much in favor of expanding light rail into VB. If City Hall were to move to Town Center, I could definitely see a case being made for LRT expanding. 

Could also see it spurring a little building boom at Town Center...

[vdogg 545]

Pilot just posted an article.

http://pilotonline.com/news/government/local/virginia-beach-city-hall-could-move-to-town-center-report/article_88bb63a2-c0f1-5a47-9376-6d4af2b9bf84.html

[urbanlife 156]

On 2/1/2016 at 3:18 PM, BFG said:

VB is possibly considering moving City Hall to Town Center. The current building is almost 50 years old and loaded with asbestos. Another option would be to renovate or rebuild at the Municipal Complex.

http://southsidedaily.com/2016/02/01/virginia-beach-city-council-to-consider-moving-city-hall-to-town-center/

Considering Mayor Sessoms loves calling TC "downtown Virginia Beach", it makes sense to move there.

This would be very good news for the city if that were to happen. The city hall belongs downtown in any city, and Pembroke is VB's downtown. I always thought the current city hall location would make for a good college campus.

[HRVT 107]

3 hours ago, urbanlife said:

This would be very good news for the city if that were to happen. The city hall belongs downtown in any city, and Pembroke is VB's downtown. I always thought the current city hall location would make for a good college campus.

Funny thing is that I thought something similar a while back when I had to go up that way for jury duty. Though the place that is more likely to become a college campus IMO is where TCC stands along with the Higher Education Center. There is still a ton of room over that way, not to mention the fact that the configuration of the current buildings could be redone a little at a time.

Not that this would be happening anytime soon. Probably not within the next two decades at the least.

Edited February 3, 2016 by HRVT

[BFG 631]

The idea of a small college hit me too...something like Regent or a commuter school, or even an extension of TCC. I just don't know how people would feel about it being that close to the jail, unless the entire municipal complex eventually migrated to Town Center.

[vdogg 545]

Keep the jail away from town center. Never been a fan of jails in the middle of downtowns.

[urbanlife 156]

8 hours ago, vdogg said:

Keep the jail away from town center. Never been a fan of jails in the middle of downtowns.

That depends really, the jail should be close to the courthouse. If they were to also move the courthouse to Pembroke, then it would also make sense for the jail to be nearby.

[NFKjeff 263]

It's also convienent to have city hall near the court house.

[chris722 8]

Makes sense. That would be one step towards making it a downtown in the classical sense.

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[BFG 631]

The new City Hall will probably go right behind the old one. New design expected to be selected tomorrow.

https://pilotonline.com/news/government/local/council-picks-location-design-for-new-virginia-beach-city-hall/article_9cdd749a-5b2c-5943-b7a4-967a04f78627.html